Graduation Vacation (Forest Grove)

On Wednesday, we headed up to Forest Grove. Brian surprised Alyssa and me by stopping for Cold Stone while the boys were sleeping. He got me a Strawberry Blondie, and it was sooooo good. After checking in at MCMenamins and showering the smoke smell off of us all, we met the Martins out on the front lawn for a picnic. I loved being able to see Jenny again. We used to meet at 6:00 every morning to go running at the track at Pacific, but we usually ended up walking most of the time, since we were talking so much. One time a guy was walking by the track and he said to us, "You're not supposed to be having this much fun so early in the morning." Oh, I miss that.

This is the best picture I got of most of the group. We were so busy talking that I really didn't get very many pictures. Jenny is in light blue, with Steve right beside her in red. Steve's mom is in blue behind Jenny.

Alyssa and Katie had such a great time together!

We went swimming in the soaking pool that night. Even though it's been free for Pacific students the whole time we were there (though not anymore, we hear) we never went before. It was beautiful! It's tucked back behind the building, surrounded by trees, flowers, and a beautiful wrought iron fence. I spent the bulk of our time swimming planning how we're going to put a pool just like it in our dream house someday.

The next day Brian had his Capstone classes, then we went to the family picnic. It was so fun seeing everyone again after being apart all year. I found that with a lot of the women, I didn't feel as if we had really been apart, because we've been reading each other's blogs the whole time. It was fun being together again, though.

While Brian was at his classes, the kids and I went to the laundromat do clean our camping clothes. Alyssa made friends with a graduate sudent who had just moved in, named Katie. They talked to each other the whole time we were there, and Katie let Alyssa make pictures with the pennies from her coin jar.

He's My Boy

Ethan woke up this morning, and was sitting on the couch looking out the window, waiting for Alyssa and Marcus to get up. Out of the blue, he turned to me and said, "Mommy, I want go to Dinneyland." Me too, Ethan. Me too.

Graduation Vacation (Beachside)

We had the absolute best time last week. We did so many fun things; the kids were never bored. It was so wonderful to have our family together and having so much fun. Nearly a hundred times a day I caught myself thinking, "This is the best vacation ever!" Really, everything went so smoothly and perfectly. I loved it!

Here's what our campsite looked like the first morning. We got in around 8:00 on Monday evening, set up camp before it got dark and started raining, and went to bed. It was surprisingly warm, but I still made the kids put on socks under their pajamas, and Brian made fun of me for that. The kids slept great. We put them on an air mattress in the main room, and Brian and I slept in the front entry area. (I got the tent for Brian as a Graduation/Father's Day present, because we want to do a ton of camping this summer and we've outgrown our two man dome tent. This new tent is huge!)

The kids enjoyed their hot cocoa.

Even though it was cold and rainy, the beach was so fun.

My boys

A sand angel. This is only the beginning of Alyssa getting dirty. She had a fabulous time!

Brian dug a hole with our little red plastic shovel. It's a two-kid hole, and it actually went a lot deeper than it looks. Ethan and Marcus just got wedged in the top. Maybe it's not quite a two-kid hole.

I don't know why he lost his pants...Maybe because they were heavy from being wet?

Alyssa loved flying kites.

Brian found these rocks on the beach. "I found this one, and then I found the yellow one next. I put them in my hand, and not too much later, I found their baby." (It might be hard to tell from the picture, but the little one is a perfect blending of the two big ones.) Brian's favorite thing to do on the beach is look for shells and rocks. He can comb the sand for hours and be completely happy.

He is so dang cute. Once again, this picture doesn't clearly show the depth of The Hole. We took this after it had been filled in a bit after we used it to store our kites.

This is the face of a Cheetos and Oreo cookie lunch.

Isn't this beautiful? There was a sand bar about twenty feet out. Brian went wading over to it, and after a little bit we heard, "Whoo! This goes a lot deeper than I thought it would."

This is the entrance to the fort we built to keep out of the rain. Alyssa started the whole project, and about fifteen minutes into it, it stopped raining, and we had beautiful blue skies for the rest of the trip. The girl by Alyssa is Emma, whose family had the site across from ours. They had so much fun together. Her dad sent us some better pictures of them together, but they're on Brian's laptop.

And here's the front side, facing the ocean. Brian made sure we had windows to be able to watch the waves.

They found stick guns, and couldn't help but shoot each other. Guys. The gun Ethan has is made out of drift wood, and it really looked so much like a gun - perfectly proportioned. I tried to find it when we were leaving, but a couple other boys had played with it after Ethan, and it was nowhere to be seen.

Brian and Marcus built a sand castle together. Marcus kept giggling every time Brian turned over and lifted the bucket.

Here's Alyssa dancing around the sand castle.

And Ethan playing in the waves.

Marcus falling asleep.

And this is what out campsite looked liked after we officially "moved in."

Short Night

I've been planning and packing for our Great Graduation Vacation for a while now, but when I started officially packing yesterday I found that I had lost all of my lists, the kids scattered everything I had grouped together, and while I was folding and packing clothes upstairs, Marcus decided to dump a box of Kix on the living room rug...which he then danced on....a lot.

So it's been crazy, but isn't packing always crazy? Last night Marcus decided to wake up about a half hour after he went to bed, and he didn't go to sleep until about 2:30 or so. I gave up just after twelve, and Brian stayed up with him, watching episodes of "The Simpsons" on Hulu until he finally fell asleep. Then I woke up at 5:30 and just couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to start the morning. The car is packed and just about ready to go, and everyone is still sleeping. Wait - I just heard Brian start the shower. That's good. Won't he be surprised to get out and find that I've packed all of his underwear...

Here's the plan:

Today and tomorrow we'll be camping at Beachside, which means exactly like it sounds. Our tent site is right on the beach. We're excited. Ethan's been ready to go camping for the last week.

On Wednesday we're heading to Forest Grove for Brian's Capstone Classes, family pictures, and some picnics. We'll be staying at McMenamins Grand Lodge while we're there. Pretty cool.

Then on Friday we're staying in a La Quinta in Portland, because they have a deal going right now that includes OMSI or Zoo tickets with your stay. (It was actually fifteen dollars cheaper to get the ticket deal than to get a regular room - crazy.) Our plan is to go to OMSI with my sister and brother and their families while Brian's at Capstone, then he'll join us when he's done. Brian's parents wil be joining us then, too.

Saturday is the greatly anticipated day of.....(drumroll)....GRADUATION! Whoo!!

Then Sunday, we'll go to the Portland Zoo, and head home.

The house is a mess right now, which is not how I'd like to come home to it, but we'll do a little bit of straightening up before we leave. Just in case anyone is thinking of robbing us while we're gone, let me tell you now that Jiovanni lives on the other side of our duplex, and he is one tough cookie. Sure, he may seem all polite and extremely nice, and he's always quick to say, "Good morning," or "How are you doing today?" and he brought in our grabage cans a couple of times when Brian wasn't here. But don't let that fool you. We hear him practicing Karate and Kung Foo all the time next door, so seriously, don't mess. Plus, we're bringing all the chocolate with us, so there's really nothing worth stealing anyway.

We're off.

I Don't Know How Women Wear These Things

They cut off the circulation to your toes.

-Brian Jacks

It's Mother's Day

* When my older brother was a baby, my mom was on a walk with her best friend. Between their talking and laughing, she heard a little girl's voice say, "It's my turn, Momma," and that's how she knew there was another baby soon joining the family. Whenever we watch our old home movies and I say my famous line, "I like Christmas because you get presents even," My mom says, "That's the voice I heard! That little, gravelly voice you had." She says I was the only kids who kept calling her, "Momma," even after I was a baby.

* When she went to the hospital to have me, she knew that I would be a girl, so she brought pink blankets and pink clothes. The nurses all thought she was crazy and told her that I would probably end up being a boy. I wasn't old enough to remember, but I'm sure she didn't gloat too much when the pink clothes fit me just right.

* When we were living in Utah, and I was probably about three or four, my mom was sewing and I kept getting too close to the sewing machine. She told me numerous times to stay back, or I would get hurt. I ended up getting my hair wound all around the side. It hurt, and they had to cut that hair off. I wish I would have learned then to always listen to the advice of my mother. I would have avoided so many mistakes.

*When I was five, we were visiting my grandma, I got into a car wreck, all by myself. We were getting ready to go somewhere, and I was impatient to get going, so I kept asking my mom if I could sit in the car. She kept saying, "No," but I did it anyway. Not knowing what I was doing, I put the car into neutral, and it started rolling down the hill my grandma lived on. When I jumped out of the car, I scraped my head on the road, which pulled and rolled all the skin off the side of my head. It was a mess. My mom was the one who rode in the neighbors car with me, holding a towel to my bleeding head, to get down the mountain to the ambulance, and she was the one who held my hand while the doctor unrolled all the skin and stitched it back in place.

*My mom made the best Halloween costumes. I always felt sorry for the kids who would show up to the school Halloween parade in store bought, plastic costumes.

*My mom sewed my baptism dress. I remember feeling so special that she would do that for me, and feeling so beautiful on the day of my baptism.

*When I was a teenager, Philip and I decided to tip toe around the house, bouncing up and down real fast, yelling some sort of "HOooOODoOOLaLoOo!" nonsense. My mom joined in, and we did that for about a half hour. It was great.

*During my senior year of high school, I did Running Start through Columbia Basin College, where I took classes there instead of the high school. Because of that, I had an easy schedule and a lot of free time. My mom and I would go on errands together while everyone else was in school, and sometimes we would stop for a hamburger.

*My mom wrote to me faithfully while I was in college, and she was always available when I would call home.

*My mom took me to the temple for my first time. I wasn't nervous, because she was there to help me.

*My mom taught me to be a good mother. It's because of her that I try to speak to my children with love, even when I'm anrgy. She's the one who taught me how to teach my children about Heavenly Father and Jesus and how to love and take care of each other.

*Now, I call my mom every day. Usually it's around breakfast time, but sometimes I end up calling her a few times through out the day for random reasons. She never seems to be bothered that I call so often.

*Sometimes, when I run errands, my mom comes along to sit with the kids in the car, so I don't have to take them back and forth out of their car seats. She sings songs with them and keeps them entertained while I run in real fast to take care of things. There's been a couple times when a three minute errand has turned into a thirty minute errand, and she hasn't complained once.

* My mom has six kids and sixteen grandchildren, and she divides her time up between us all. She makes us all feel so loved and important, and she's always there for us, for whatever we may need.

Happy Mother's Day, Momma

Just Two More Days

I usually don't post things like this on my blog. It took me forever to start putting pictures on here, and I don't plan on putting any videos up. But, I've been planning this for a while, and I was finally able to start it on Monday. It's the reason we watched Bambi for Family Home Evening, and it's the reason the kids watched Sky Captain....um, twice before I put them to bed. And it's the reason a bag of Easter candy and I stayed up until 1:15 in the morning, which is very unusual for me. So, yeah, here it is. Oh, see if you can find Philip eating a dinosaur.

Happy Almost Done and Almost Graduating Day, Brian!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Helpers

I got a kick out of Ethan's choice in gardening attire. Lightning McQueen underwear and blue boot slippers.


He's so fun!


Marcus did his share of digging, too.


I didn't get any pictures of Alyssa gardening. It could be because she was dressed like a normal person, or it could be because she didn't hold still long enough for me to snap a picture. We went to Granny's Buffet after working in the yard all day with Brian's parents, and Alyssa made so many friends while we were there.


Marcus is a great worker and he's sociable.

Living Room Decor

I've decided that I need to get a wall sign that says, "It just looks like I haven't done any cleaning today."

Seriously, how do people keep their houses clean (and their couch cushions on the couch, and their dining room chairs in the dining room, etc) when they have kids? It's impossibe!

One Little Monkey Jumping On The Bed

Ethan has been having a heck of a time going to sleep lately. He's up and down, and bouncing around his bed. He's making it difficult to get Marcus to sleep, and a couple of times he's even woken Marcus up after he's fallen asleep. He hollers for a book or a toy or to be tucked in again after I've gone down the stairs and settled into the computer chair to talk to Brian. He says he needs to "oh ooh a bashroom" even though he's not potty trained, and there's been a couple of times that I've found him in the bathroom, dancing around, naked. Then he gets mad at me when I try to put him back in bed.

About a week ago, when he got in trouble for something really bad (although I don't remember what it was) and I said, "Ethan Daniel Jacks..." he said, "I not Ethan El Acks. I just Ethan, Mommy."

But tonight, when I said, "Ethan Daniel Jacks, you had better get back up to bed right now," he knew exactly who I was talking to.

Open Up Your Mind And See Like Me

We're almost done. Next week is Brian's last week of Rotations. His last week of school - ever. Our last week of being apart. When we embarked on this journey, I didn't think that it would be as hard as it was, or that I would grow so much. Doing everything on my own - the day to day, teaching Marcus how to sleep through the night (which he's doing for the most part now, yea!), dealing with Alyssa's struggles in school - it's all taught me to be calm, patient, and understanding. It's taught me to trust in the Lord and to rely on Him while still maintaining confidence in myself to do the things that I believe will bring our little family happiness. I have grown in so many ways over the last nine months. While I'm thankful for all the experiences and wonderful "growth opportunities" this last year of school has given me, I still don't ever want to do it again!

Marcus is starting to talk. He can say a lot of little things (Mama, Daddy, Lassa, cat, wata, etc) and he repeats a lot of things I say, like this morning when Ethan sneezed, I said "Bless you," and Marcus said "Ess-oo." He's growing up so fast, but he's still at the point where he wants to say so much more than he is capable of saying. This morning he woke up perfectly happy, but when I set him at the table for breakfast, there was something he wanted that he couldn't communicate to me, so we spent the next twenty minutes with him crying and screaming at me and me trying to figure out what he wanted. Not a whole lot of fun for either of us. When Brian called on his way to work, he tried to help over the phone.

"Can you sit with him on your lap and have him eat breakfast there?" Yes, and it worked somewhat, but once I sat down, Ethan needed a refill of orange juice. It's not easy for a mom of little kids to sit down for any reason - someone always needs something.* I was able to get Marcus to settle down enough to eat some of his breakfast, but then when he got down he was angry again. I pulled him on my lap while I checked everyone's blogs while Alyssa and Ethan were finishing breakfast, and luckily he heard the music on Heather's blog. He started dancing to Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours."

I had to remind myself once again, like I've had to do so many times over the last several months, that sometimes I need to slow down and take the time to hold and love my children and just be with them. So we had a dance party to Heather's playlist, and even though I had to kick stuffed animals and discarded pajamas out of the way so none of us tripped while dancing, we had a fabulous time.

*It's taken about an hour to write this post, because of all the interruptions.

For the Literary Minded

My niece, Megan, is hosting a Passalong Story on her blog.  Everyone's taking turns adding a sentence or two, so if you want to have a say in the story "The Princess and the Pea," head over to Small Adventures and add a comment to the story.  Megan would be thrilled to have some extra authors visit her blog.

The Good Old Days

Last week I finally got around to developing a bunch of rolls of film that I have been carting around for years. It was so fun to be surprised by the pictures that were on each roll. I was hoping that one of them would be the engagement pictures that my friend Katie took of me and Brian, but I didn't find any of those. I apologize for any and all bad lighting, funny colors, and unexpected effects. I am not a fabulous photographer, and the film was really, really old.

First off, we'll start with pictures from the band/choir trip to San Francisco.

Guess where this one was taken....(hint: Read the crab)

Brooke Harker, Bridget Esterhuizen, and Daniel Francik

I think this was at Alcatraz.

Sshhh....They're sleeping. (It's Bridget and Brooke, by the way.)

Brooke, I think you look absolutely gorgeous in this picture.

Moving on to my freshman year of college at BYU:

This is my room. It's got a countdown Kissmas tree, a picture of my friends and I at high school graduation (purple paper), a picture of David Duchovny ('cause that was during my X-Files phase), a paper doll set that I'll explain in a minute, a Jesus collage, drawings of my family that I had to do for my American Sign language class, pictures from my high school summer job, and the foil thing by the plant I'd like to have Jamie explain, becasue I can't remember what that was for. Kay, so the paper dolls were the way a guy answered me when I asked him to Preference. Katie Bleazard and I put on tons of layers of clothes all the way up to our rain coats, which we could barely button because they were so stuffed. On each layer of clothes I taped a word from the sentence "Let's take off to Preference," and we danced and jumped around to fabulous music while taking off our clothes. It's called a strip-o-gram, I know. Looking back on it, and knowing what I do now as a sensible adult, we probably shouldn't have done it, but it was all meant in good fun. The last layer was shorts and a t-shirt, and we were just jumping around - it wasn't meant to be sexy in any way at all. If any of my children or grandchildren are reading this, let it be known that I will not condone any such behavior from you. Anyway, he answered by doing the same with a paper doll that wsa actually and truly named Carrie. I have no idea how he found it, but I thought it was very cool. Um, moving on.


These are my roommates from first semester. (I moved in with one of my best friends after Christmas.) Sara, Janette, and...Man, I'm completely blanking on the last one. I have no idea why I don't remember her name right now. I'll fix it when I remember. It's seriously on the tip of my brain.


Okay, this is Katie Bleazard, Jamie Thompson, Wendi Andelin, Bridget Esterhuizen, with Kara Bleazard sprawled out on Katie and Jamie. Bridget went to school in Wisconsin, and she came to visit us a couple of times, and apparently we ate ice cream. This was taken in the kitchen of Jamie's apartment.


Katie, busting some serious moves, with Melissa Mason laughing in the background. Okay, do you see the hanging paper with the big pink "h" thing on it? Katie made a bunch of funky shapes to help decorate all of our rooms. I wonder if I still have mine somwhere?

This is Jessica, after she got a job as a custodian. (A lot of us became custodians after that. I figured if Jess was cool enough to do it, anybody was, and it was so fun.) The toilet papering job and sign was done by Jamie and probably Melissa, too. The signs read, "Clean up this mess, Janitor Jess," and "Wee luv yew Jhes-say-kuh."


Jamie, modeling my bed.


This is everyone from my apartment second semester. Melissa, Jamie, Shannon, Me, Jennifer, and Jessica.


VerDonn, Katie, Me, Shared
Katie's wearing one of my dresses, and I'm wearing one of hers. The purple one is the bridesmaid dress from my brother's wedding. I had so many friends borrow that one. (You picked well, Tallia!)


A different dance. Me, Katie, Melissa, and Jamie.


This was Jamie's boyfriend, Brad. There was one time that Jamie planned a romantic dinner in the basement of our apartment complex, and I was in charge of cooking Brad's steak. The only problem was that I had no idea whatsoever how to cook a streak, and, man, if that poor cow wasn't dead before I got to it, it sure as heck was by the time I was through. That thing was cooked thoroughly and pressed so that any juices it had were completely drained. Now that I know what makes a good steak, I really feel sorry for what Brad had to eat that night.

My Oh So Famous Husband

I was looking through the catalog of classes offered by the city of Richland's Parks and Recreation department this afteroon, when Brian called saying he was getting off of work at the hospital. We've been talking about taking a class together when he moves back home, and before we hung up, I told Brian that I would look into it further before we talked again tonight. So I got online and went to the website listed in the catalog, and immediately called out in wonderment and surprise.

You see, on this website there are rotating pictures on the home page, so that each time you visit or refresh the page, you are greeted with a beautiful, large picture of something in the city of Richland. And when I pulled up the website, staring at me was a picture of Brian, at about fourteen years old, fishing with his dog, Tally. We have a blown up copy of it that was hanging in the boys' room of our Forest Grove house, but we haven't yet hung it up since moving here. I tried to copy and paste it from the website to put it on here, but it wont let me. But if you really want to see it, go here, and just keep clicking "refresh" until you find it.

The story behind the picture is that a friend of Brian's family needed a picture for a brochure for Hanford showing how clean the water was, and they asked Brian to pose for it. He brought along his dog, and the photographer tried a number of different poses but none seemed to be working, so Brian said, "Let me show you what we usually do," and Tally laid down, Brian leaned up against her, and the shot turned out beautifully.

Iwas just surprised that it would end up on the city's website, but most of all that out of all the pictures they have as options, that it would be the very first to be pulled up for me when I checked it today.

Absolute Beautiful Day

Today was gorgeous - absolutely gorgeous outside. The sun was shining, it was nice and warm. We had a great day. We spent the morning building houses and puppies out of blocks. (The puppies were Ethan's idea and design. They were cute.) We also spent the morning cleaning...after Ethan decided to do some business in the dressing room upstairs. And Marcus, being the competitive soul that he is, had to upstage his older brother by taking off his diaper and rubbing the contents of said diaper (and his bum) on the couch. That was fun.

After we took Alyssa to school, we dropped off her registration forms at the Mid-Columbia Parent Partnership in Kennewick, where Alyssa will (kind of) be going to school next year. We've officially decided to homeschool, and that was the first real step in making that happen. MCP is a program that offers classes and activities twp or three days a week to suplement homeschoolers and give them a chance for social opportunities. They have art classes, acting classes, science, Spanish, and a ton of other fun things. We're really excited about it.

We spent the next couple of hours trying to find sandals for the kids, and we found a lot of cute ones, but not in the right sizes.

Then we picked up Alyssa and headed to Christina's house so the kids could play in the sprinklers with their cousins. We had a wonderful time. Everyone got wet and muddy, there were very few arguments, and everyone was happy most of the time.

A New Adventure

We might be a little slow on this, but Alyssa just got her first pair of lace up shoes, and she's learning to tie them. Make an X, put one over and through, pull. Make a tree, send the bunny around and through the hole, pull. That's it, right? I'm afraid that I'll ruin this important childhood milestone by doing something wrong. It's crazy to think that she's growing up and learning new things. She still needs to learn to ride a bike, even though she's gotten extremely good at her scooter. I'm thinking of starting her with piano lessons this summer, and she's definitely excited for ballet in the fall.

You Want To Be Sick At My House

A little while ago I went to Costco and was really tempted to buy an All American Chocolate Cake for no reason at all. Being the practical* person that I am, I didn't buy it, but I ended up wishing that I had bought it the entire drive home. A little less of a while ago, I went to Costco again, and the first thing I did was head back to the bakery section a plop a huge chocolate cake in my cart. Then I added toilet paper and napkins and some other boring stuff. Even though I shared the cake with my family, I ended up eating so much of it over the next few days that I became absolutely sick of chocolate cake. I know, I didn't think it was possible, either. So I wrapped up the last piece of cake and put it in the freezer for a later date, telling myself that I would only eat it if it was truly necessary, and I did a good job of leaving it alone.

Yesterday Alyssa woke up not feeling well, so we kept her home from school and she and the boys watched movies all day long. Around lunch time, my stomach started hurting, too, and my head began to ache. So while Brian was getting showered and packed to head to Portland, Marcus and I went to Blockbuster to get some movies for a Sick People's Movie Party.

We got "Tale of Despereaux," "Bedtime Stories,"and "Penelope," and we watched the first two after we sent Brian on his way for the very last round of Boards, which he is taking right now, as I type, and I'm sure he's doing fabulous. We pulled Alyssa's mattress downstairs for the kids to lay on, but it just became a trampoline for the boys to jump on. We got out some crackers and graham cracker type cookies to eat, but they just became confetti for the boys to scatter about the room.

It was a little crazy with the boys climbing all over Alyssa and me, and jumping from the couch to the mattress, and back again, but overall it was a great time, and we loved both movies. I didn't know anything about "Tale of Despereaux" so I didn't have any preconcieved notions about it, but I thought it was so much better than I thought it was going to be. If that makes any sense. And my favorite part of "Bedtime Stories" is the line "...jumping up and down on the aligator..." - so funny. I laughed so hard, and it hurt my already sore throat.

Anyway, Alyssa and I were going to watch "Penelope" for Girls Night, but she fell asleep while I was getting the boys in bed, so I watched it myself while eating the huge piece of All American Chocolate Cake from the freezer. That was a good movie, such a good movie. I loved it. I want to dress like Penelope. Then Alyssa woke up around midnight to go to the bathroom, and she started heading downstairs for Girls Night.

"Alyssa, where are you going?" I asked, directing her back to her bedroom.

"To Girls Night. The boys are asleep."

"But you fell asleep, too. We missed Girls Night. We'll have it tomorrow."

"I didn't fall asleep," she argued, and no matter how I tried to convince her, she didn't believe me. I was able to get her back to bed, though, and then I went to bed myself.

We're all feeling better today. I still have a headache and sore throat, but it's manageable, and Alyssa seems to be feeling fine. The kids have already watched "Bedtime Stories" twice this morning while I've been getting some laundry done. (jumping up and down on the alligator - ha!) Brian's got about an hour left of his test, and then he has nothing to worry about when it comes to school and tests. Woo-hoo!


*If you want to know how practical I am, ask Brian how many times he's had to tell me, "We don't have to go to Disneyland every year," over the last couple of weeks.

The Final Countdown

For Family Home Evening last night the kids and I made a countdown chain until the time that Brian will be home for good. It's not too far away! This Friday is his very last ever test for Boards, and then he's only got three weeks after that until this rotation is over. Yea!

Early Easter

This year Brian and I decided to start a new tradition of having the Easter Bunny visit our house the Saturday before Easter, instead of on Easter. That way we can enjoy the baskets and egg hunt without having to worry about working it around getting to church, and it helps to have the sugar rush on Saturday instead of right in the middle of sacrament meeting, and the biggest thing is that we can do the "fun" stuff early and focus on the Savior on Easter.

We had the Simms and a couple of neighbor boys over for dinner last night. Alyssa invited the neighbor boys over. When we were trying to send them home so we could eat, Alyssa came to me and said, "But I told them to ask their mom if they could eat with us." Okay. It was a lot of fun, and it was helpful to have the neighbors with us, becasue they became good friends with the Simms son, Justin, who was worried that he wouldn't have any fun since he would be the oldest kid there. Brian won Settlers of Catan, like he always does, and it was really late when we put the kids to bed. Brian and I were both really tired, so we didn't do anything to set up Easter before we went to bed.

But when the kids sleep in, the cat usually wakes me up, so when she started licking my hand and wanting me to fill her water bowl, I went downstairs to put the baskets together. Brian was in charge of keeping the kids upstairs if they woke up, because I was worried that it might ruin the mystery of the Easter Bunny for Alyssa if Brian was keeping everyone upstairs and then all of a sudden I come up and announce that the Easter Bunny had come "some time during the night." She's getting smarter, and it won't be long before she'll figure things like that out. So the whole time that I was dumping jelly beans into the plastic eggs, and filling cake decorating bags with Cheetos, I kept praying that the kids would sleep long enough for me to set the baskets out and hide the eggs. But when I finished everything and went back to bed, the kids stayed sleeping for a while longer.

"Why won't they wake up?" I kept asking Brian.

"Because you want them to," he would say.

Eventually we ended up with everyone in bed with us, and when we were headed down for "breakfast" Ethan was the first one to bounce down the stairs. He came back up with a large purple egg in his hand and said, "An Over Egg, Mommy." And the hunt began.

I can not acurately say how wonderful it is to be a parent and watch the joy in your chldren's eyes when they're discovering the treasures in their easter baskets, and when thet're surprised at all the amazing places the Easter Bunny hid the eggs. I love having children; they're so much fun, and it's so amazing to live the magic of Holidays again through them.

So right now Marcus is sprinkling the milk from his sippy cup all over his tray of Cheetos, Ethan is buzzing a chocolate bee around the room, and Alyssa is giving us a play by play of all the wrong things Marcus is doing. We decided to let the kids have a candy breakfast, and then we'll have a healthy breakfast for lunch.

It's been a wonderful Easter so far, and we still have great things to come.

A City So Nice, They Named it Twice

I can count on one hand the number of Mondays that we've spent with Brian since last August. Yesterday was the Monday that put the count to the other hand.

Brian usually calls in the morning to talk to us on the way to work. Yesterday morning he mentioned that he had left his name badge at home when he left on Sunday, and as he said this I looked over to the entry way and saw his tennis shoes sitting there as well.

"We'll bring them to you, " I volunteered, and with that we were getting dressed, grabbing extra diapers, and soon we were on our way.

It's only an hour drive from here to Walla Walla, and it is a beautiful drive. Farmland, rolling hills, rivers and cliffs. It's just beautiful. It's one of those drives where I would have preferred to have Brian driving so I could just look out the window and take it all in. We passed the paper factory and talked about how paper is made and balked at the stink. We drove alongside the Columbia River, which was a bright brown from all the mud being washed in with the Spring thaw. We passed farms with tractors out preparing the fields, and farms with cows and horses meandering through the pastures.

We borrowed my parent's GPS system, so it took us straight to the Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center. We used the map I had printed out before we left to find the building where the optometry department is, and we went in to take Brian his name badge.

It was fun to see where Brian is working and to meet one of the doctors he's working with. We only saw him for a few minutes, then we went to the park to play until he got off for lunch. We also drove around town for a while looking at all the beautiful old homes, and we found four free rose bushes sitting out by a sign in someone's yard that we picked up for my sister. We spent the entirety of Brian's lunch "hour" in the drive thru at Ice Burg Drive In, where we got fabulous milkshakes and the best hamburgers I've ever had. Then we drove Brian back to the hospital real quick, and he said good bye and ran back in.

I had planned on going to the Witman Mission, but Marcus was sleeping, so we went on home. It was a very fun day, and we were so glad that we got to see Brian, even though it was only for a short while.

Girls Night 10

Alyssa and I started sewing a pink butterfly library bag, complete with a pocket for her new library card. We've got most of it done, and next week we'll put the handle on it. Tonight she was in charge of telling me what fabric she wanted, which ribbon to go with it, and (this was her favorite part) pushing the foot pedal on the sewing machine. Oh, she loved that! Our camera has completely disappeared, so hopefully we'll have it next week and I'll post a picture of the finished product.

Miscellaneous

Alyssa was invited by her friend, Elizabeth, to go to Bring a Friend Day at ballet. She loved it; she was in heaven. Watching her dance and point her toes, I was really tempted to put her in right away so she can finish out the semester, but finances and the amount of time and energy I have to chase two boys around will probably have us wait until Fall. We're all excited for that, though. I've definitely decided that that's what we'll put her in next Fall.

Plus, NaDell brought some ant poison bait trap things for us to use, and the ants have been in and out of that thing all afternoon long. Believe me, it was quite the popular place to be among the ant crowd. Let's just hope it's popular enough to kill the whole lot of them! (Sinister laugh goes here.)

Alyssa is getting to be a great reader. She's doing really well, and she has great potential, but she fights every step of the way. "I can't do it," she says, "That page is too long." But when I coax her to read it, she does a fabulous job. She loves having "school" with me each morning, and I've seen huge improvements on her behavior and in other areas from having the extra attention/practice/activities each day. She's also getting really good at riding her scooter.

Ethan is talking up a storm. My dad often says that it took me forever to start talking, but once I started, they couldn't get me to shut up. (And shut up was a bad word in our house growing up. I guess dads are exempt.) So now we're starting to go through that with Ethan. It's not necessarily that he talks and talks and talks in sentences until we've had enough, but he likes to point things out to us (Ook, Mom! A rezeer!) and he'll say it over and over again until we repeat it back to him (Yes, Ethan, there's the river) so he can be sure we've understood him.

He's still the perfect gentleman, except for one point. He likes to burp. He doesn't really know how to burp, though, so he'll be sitting at the table and he'll say, "Burt...'scuse me!" and a few moments later, "Burt...'scuse me!" I wonder where he learned burping at the table from, Brian. I have no idea, Brian, where he might have picked that one up from.

Marcus is this close to going to sleep happily by himself in his crib. He's to the point where he'll lay down by himself, and he wants me to put the blanket over him so he can flip flop around on the pillow to get comfortable, then almost go to sleep until he stands up again, lays back down, and starts the whole process over. We're getting there. He's only waking up once or twice a night, and he's really easy to get back to sleep now. So that's going well.

And, boy the kisses he gives. It's so sweet. For the past few nights, when I'm rocking and hugging him before bedtime, he'll get serious for a moment or two, look at me with big googly eyes, grab my neck, or sometimes he pats my cheeks, then he'll pucker up and give me the sweetest little kiss on the lips, and quickly turn his head away with a very shy smile. And he'll do this seven, eight, nine or so times unti he's ready to lay back down in his crib. He is going to be quite the ladies man someday.

Brian is doing well in Walla Walla. He wears blue scrubs every day at the hospital, and he's never told me where he's figured out to put his keys, since the srcubs have no pockets. He's studying for the third round of Boards, which will take place over two weekends in April.

I'd tell you what I've been up to, but the things I want to say each almost deserve their own post. To sum it all up, I'm having a blast doing Morning School with the kids each day, but I'm getting completely worn out from having Brian coming and going so much, and (like I've said so many times before) I'm so tired of him being away. I'm excited for Spring - so excited for Spring! And I've already bought most of our Easter candy. Can't wait for that. I'm going to have to start hunting around for the hard shell pastel sugar egg things that I love, because they're really hard to find.

And that's what we've been up to.

Popcorn from Heaven

I remember a time in high school - I don't know where we were, Katie's house, Bridget's house, Kara's house, my house... - but we were all sitting around somewhere, getting ready to watch a movie. Jamie happened to mention that she was hungry, and Brooke, who was sitting beside her, sprinkled popcorn over her head, saying, "Don't worry, Martha. The Lord will provide."

I don't really know why that memory stuck in my head, but I'm glad it did, because it resurfaced this weekend, and honestly, it's given me a lot of peace.

I am a planner. I like to plan things, and sometimes I plan things multiple times, just because it's so much fun to plan things. I usually plan things well in advance of them actually happening, mostly because I'm excited, but partly because I feel that if you prepare early you'll be prepared for anything.

Brian and I have been talking a lot this past while about buying or building a house in the near future. Obviously, we're looking at things a little early given that we haven't graduated from school yet and therefore, we don't have a job. But we do have a job lined up, and it's been good to talk about it early, because it's been fun to start to figure everything out together and it's given us plenty of time (and we still have plenty of time) to get everything figured out.

I mentioned in a previous post that there's a small neighborhood going up in Pasco that's close to the river, in a country setting, on large lots, for a good price. I've fallen in love with one lot in particular in that neighborhood. It's on the end of a cul-de-sac, with a large, nicely shaped triangle that would would create a huge backyard if you placed the house correctly. I've fallen in love with that lot, and there has been a part of me that has been impatient to get things going (even though I know it's too early to get things going) and I've been afraid to lose that lot of land if we wait for too long.

So this last weekend we were going over finances, and looking into a lot of options for paying off student loans the best way, saving up for a house, etc. And, like I said, I'm really glad we started planning early, because we've been back and forth and up and around all over the place figuring things out, and it's given us time to put priorities in place and figure things out to the best of our advantage. Even though we haven't decided anything, I feel like we're on the right track to getting things worked out.

While I was thinking about everything on Saturday, thinking about getting our student loans under control as our first priority, I started to worry. "What about that lot? What if it get's taken?!?" But then a memory popped into my mind. I saw Jamie being showered with popcorn from "Heaven," and heard Brooke saying, "Don't worry, Martha. The Lord will provide."

So everything's going to work out. If we're meant to have that lot, it will still be around when we're ready. More likely, though, is that when we're ready we'll be able to find something that will be wonderful for us, and I just need to be patient and wait to see what that is.

Girls Night 9

Tonight we painted Alyssa's nails, folded laundry, and watched the pilot episode of "House." We're not so sure that we like "House." For one, I probably shouldn't have let Alyssa watch it in the first place. Her stomach got queezy during a couple of parts. For two, the pilot didn't do a whole lot for me. I'll try a couple more episodes before I decide, though.

So we've made it nine weeks without missing a Girls Night. It's been so fun, and Alyssa really looks forward to it.

Oh, and today we went to the library, and Alyssa got her first library card. That was very exciting!

Just a Little Adventure

Yesterday I loaded up the kids, my mom, and my niece, Merian into the van and we drove to Spokane to play in the snow with my sister, Kim. The thought process that lead to this was, "Alyssa doesn't have school this week. It would be nice to do something fun with her and the boys. It would be cool to take her skiing, but I don't think I'm good enough to teach someone else, and it's expensive, and I'd have to find someone to watch the boys. Hey, we should go sledding, instead. Where would we find snow? Spokane! Mom said that there was a ton of snow in Spokane when she was there on Sunday. We should go sledding in Spokane."

From that thought, I called my mom, then Kim, and soon it evolved from an afternoon sledding trip to an overnight party, and back to an afternoon sledding trip. We left around 11:00, and made it to Kim's house, then the park around 2:00. Apparently, it's been warmer in Spokane over the last few days, because a lot of the snow was gone. There was still enough to go sledding, but the hill had a ton of bumps, and there were trees lining the edges, which were actually really easy to run into. (No one did, but we sure got close!) When the boys started crying because they were too cold, we loaded the kids back in the van, went to McDonalds for dinner, and headed home.

The girls had a great time giggling and singing in the back of the van. Ethan had a good time watching the trains, Marcus slept most of the time, and my mom and I had a wonderful time talking with each other. I even learned that when my dad was in college he dated the sister missionary who taught my mom before she joined the church. Pretty cool.

Another Year Older, and Wiser, too?

It's been a good birthday. Alyssa even says that God gave me a birthday present in the form of a beautiful hail storm that lasted nearly a half hour. The hail was coming down like crazy, and building up on the grass. We went out and danced in it for a while. It was very cool.

Brian sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers. The kids and I watched Madagascar 2 and had pizza for dinner. Then we made a cake where the overall frosting technique was, "Frost the cake, put pretty squigglies all over it, and put drop flowers wherever Ethan or Marcus poked and/or grabbed handfuls of cake and frosting."

I've had a ton of people either stop by or call or email to wish me a happy birthday, and Katie says that I've apparently got some well wishes on Facebook, too. I didn't even think to check Facebook! Anyway, birthdays are fun. (ooh, here comes a rhyme.) Birthdays are great, and this one is special 'cause I'm twenty-eight. Yep, I'm going to bed now.

A World of Difference

Marcus slept until 4:41 last night. Old time, not new time. If you factor in daylight savings, which I should since it went into effect at 2 a.m., he slept from 9:00 through almost 6:00! Isn't that amazing?!? I am amazed at what a good night of sleep does to my morale. Also, it's wonderful to have a husband sit up in bed while I'm rocking Marcus and say, "If there's any way that I can help, let me know." So much better than not having a husband here at all. Really, just having him here, just not being alone made a world of difference.

Negetive Nan

Warning: It's currently 4:19 in the morning. I have been weaning Marcus for a week now. My hormones are going berserk. I am emotional and cranky, and I may or may not make sense.

Oh, where do I begin? There are so many (many!) crazy ramblings going through my mind right now. Marcus was actually mostly asleep, being rocked on my lap, but he was coughing so frequently that he wasn't able to fully go to sleep so I could put him down. I was basically writing a Complaining Post in my head, so I figured I better write it down to just get it out.

I'm sorry that the bulk of my posting for the last six or seven months have been me complaining. Life is really not that bad, and even on my worst days I know that there are so many other people who have a harder life than I do, and I really have no cause to complain. But yet I still complain, and I hate that, because I am not a negative person. I'm not, and I don't like being one. I realized a few months ago that I was spending entirely way too much time focusing on the negative, which was only making my life, and my children's lives worse. And yet, I still complain. In my defense, though, even though I have a ton of negetive blog posts lately, I'm not being negative all day long of every day. I just don't have any free time to post the good things that are happening. Seriously, there have been so many good posts that I've wanted to write that have just been swept aside, because when I finally get chance to write I've got to get everything written down and out of my brian. Like now, for instance.

So, yeah. Where do I begin? I am so tired of having Brian gone. We've gotten used to it; it's almost become routine, especially now that he's able to be home every weekend, instead of every thrid or fourth weekend. We've gotten used to it, and we've made do and done the best that we could, but I am so ready for it to be over. I'm tired of all our conversations taking place over Windows Live Messenger after the kids are in bed. I would love to just have him come home in the evenings and be able to talk over dinner or while cleaning up after dinner. I would even love to have to shout while talking, because the kids are being loud, or have a disconnected conversation, because I have to change a diaper in the middle of it. I just want him here. I'm tired of being alone, and I'm tired of doing this alone. Call me a wimp, but I could not be a military wife. I'm not that good.

Weaning Marcus has been crazy. Let me start by telling you that my other two children basically weaned themselves. On their own, they cut down their nursings to be just once before bedtime, or during the occasional "I'm sick" or "I really just got hurt" times, so nursing just kind of faded out for them, and weaning was no big deal for me or for them. (Alyssa weaned at fourteen months, and Ethan weaned at fifteen.) Weaning Marcus has been entirely different story. When I started to try getting him to sleep through the night when he was eight or nine months, I kept nursing him through the night, because Brian wasn't home, I was exhausted from being a single mother, and nursing was the fastest and easiest way to get him back to sleep. And that was okay up until he was twelve, thirteen, fourteen months old and waking up nearly every two hours to nurse. You can't tell me that that was necessary. He wasn't interested in nursing during the day, he was getting plenty of nutrition from real food. He just had this crutch to lean on that actually was keeping us both up all night long.

So I tried to shorten the time spent nursing at night. I tried cutting down the number of times he nursed at night. We made progress, but that progress was very, very slow. Fast forward to last week. Jeremy and Andrea were getting married in Seattle, and I very much wanted to go with Brian without bringing Marcus along. We spent the entire week debating whether or not to bring him, and we finally decided to just leave him at home. It turns out that we were very busy with Brian being the best man (Yes, I'll post soon about the wedding. I've been wanting to.) and it would have been really hard to be carting a baby around everywhere. My wonderful mother kept Marcus for two nights, and he was not happy about the situation. When I got back, I figured that he had already gone two days and nights without nursing, and it would be silly to put both him and my mom through that and then to just go back to nursing all night long, so we quit cold turkey.

I'm glad that we did, but it's been hard on both of us. With the other two kids I didn't have the huge and hurting chest when I stopped nursing. I don't like that part. I didn't have my hormones forming a picket line and shouting obscenities at me. I don't like that part, either. And Marcus has definitely not been happy with it. Yes, we're still making progress. He's sleeping better, but with his cold (really, I guess it is more the cold than the not nursing) it's really hard for him to get back to sleep enough to stay asleep. He's now on a schedule that he wakes up at four o'clock every morning, and instead of crying and screaming like he did at the beginning of the week, he just complains for a few minutes, fights for a few minutes, then he goes to sleep in my arms. Seriously, the whole process takes about ten minutes. Not that bad. But then he starts coughing in my arms, and he doesn't settle enough for me to lay him down, then he wakes up again, and we have to start the whole process over. Or, I lay him down, he starts coughing, and then after about five minutes he wakes up again. Really, the best way to get him and keep him asleep right now is by holding him and walking around the room, and my legs are so sore from walking so much. It feels like I've just taken up running! My thighs are actually sore! From rocking my baby to sleep!

But, really, we are making progress so I shouldn't complain. And once his cold is gone things will get a lot easier. (By the way, I rubbed creamy Vicks on his chest and throat a while back, and he's asleep now. He got tired of sitting on my lap down here, so we went upstairs and he conked right out.)

So what else is going on? I want to have another baby. Brian wants to have another baby. But I do not want to be pregnant again. Even with being on medication when I was pregnant with Marcus, I was still miserable. Yes, I was only throwing up once or twice a day. Yes, I was able to take care of the kids and reasonably take care of the house. Yes, I was able to function as a normal person, which is something I wasn't able to do while pregnant with Ethan. Yes, yes, it was okay, but I was still miserable. The throwing up once or twice a day lasted nine months. My stomach was hurting constantly. I was miserable, and I do not want to do that again. I honestly feel like being pregnant contributed to this awful state of complaining that I'm in. When you spend nine months being miserable, you kind of get used to it, and you just keep complaining even when it's over.

I know, there are ladies who would give their right leg to have the opportunity to be pregnant. I should be thankful that I can have children, and I am. I feel guilty that I'm not embracing this miracle that I have a chance to take part in. I've lost three babies during my pregnancies, so I know that feeling of emptiness. And it took a long time to get pregnant with Ethan, so I know the yearning of wanting so badly to be pregnant. I know how incredibly sad it is to be on the other side of things, yet, I still feel that being pregnant would be worse.

There are so many things that I want to do with the children I have already, and I feel like the quality of their lives would suffer from having a sick mom for nine months. I wouldn't be able to play with them, or have energy and patience to tuck them in at night. I wouldn't even be able to sit and read with them, because that would put them too close to me and reading aloud would also make the sickness worse. (It sounds pathetic, but it really does.) I'm seriously thinking of homeschooling next year (yes, I'll post about this soon, too) and I've started having a Morning School with the kids before Kindergarten each day, and I've loved that. I wouldn't be able to do that if I was pregnant. I'm terrified that we don't have a dish washer. Standing over a hot, steamy sink doing dishes is really hard for me when I'm pregnant. Heck, just rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher was hard enough last time. Brian says that he'll help, but he's not going to be around all day, and he'll be tired when he comes home, so even though it's wonderful of him to offer (and if/when I do decide to get pregnant I will take him up on that offer) it's not enough to relieve my mind.

Yes, I know I don't have to worry about this right now. While you're reading this, you're thinking, "If you're not ready to be pregnant yet, just wait. Don't worry about it right now. Marcus is still young. You have plenty of time." I've already told myself the same thing. The problem is that even thinking about it happening next year, a year from now, a couple years from now...it still feels like it's this huge thing that looming over me, waiting to just make my life miserable. And it doesn't help that I really do want more children. I especially want a sister for Alyssa. Honestly, if I was guaranteed to have a girl, I would do it one more time, and that sounds really bad, because there are so many women who would be happy with whatever they were given.

I've thought about adoption a bit. I want to think about it more. Maybe if we put the Pregnancy Decision off long enough for Brian to come home and get settled in his job and get us settled in our lives, then we'll look into it more. I know there are a lot of children out there who need loving homes. I just need to look into it enough and know that it really is the right thing for us before we think seriously about it.

And last, (Yes, I'm almost done!) I want to buy a house. Brian and I have been talking about buying a house for the last five years. We frequently plan our dream house, even though it may never happen. But it's fun to plan. In our dream house I have our ballroom, and Brian has the elevator going down to a Bat Cave that also has multiple buttons for basement levels that don't exist, just to confuse people...who happen to be in the Bat Cave Elevator....Um, but we know that those particular designs will never actually make it into our real dream house.

So we've been talking about buying a house, and we've actually talked to a few banks and lenders and such, and we could buy a house in the very near future. School is almost done, and Brian will have a steady, good job. It looks like it's very possible for us to buy a house soon, but we're running into the question of just because we can doesn't necessarily mean that we should. We've had a great time looking at houses that are entirely too expensive for us, and adding mental notes on which contractors we like the best and what their rates are for building Bat Caves. We've looked at a lot of different options, from buying to building, to waiting. I've found a lot of land that I've fallen in love with, and a builder that seems to be in our price range, and we could even start building soon so the house would be ready this summer when Brian will have a job, but we're still not sure that's the smartest thing to do right now.

I would love to be settled for a while in our own house. I can't wait for the day that we can actually say we have our own house. The lot that I love is so close to the Columbia River and the bike path. I would love to live by the river! The lot is actually not very far (at all) to where I grew up. I have so many memories of going on walks or bike rides along the river. Riding my bike to meet Jamie Thompson at an old dead tree that we named Marius (because I had a huge crush on Ryan Pitcher), and going for walks with my sister Christina and just being in awe of her very exciting (in my opinion) high school life. I would love to be able to take walks every day with the kids or with Brian or as a family. I would love for Alyssa to have a safe place to ride her bike. She's six years old, and she doesn't know how to ride a bike!

See? There's so much that I want, but I feel guilty for not being thankful for what I already have. We are so blessed to have the house we're living in now. It's not perfect, and some days here are really hard, but it's more than a lot of people have, and we really are lucky. I should be thankful.

And now you all know that I'm crazy, because Marcus has been sleeping for the last forty-five minutes, and instead of going back to bed, I've been typing away my troubles and boring you all with an incredibly long, emotional post. Now it's almost six o'clock, and I'm wondering if I should just get up for the day and take a shower while everyone is still sleeping, or if I should go back to bed, which means that I'll probably be forced to take a shower with Ethan and Marcus running around the bath tub, hogging the water. I could start another paragraph telling you about how I've tried to interest the boys in breakfast, computer, movies, games, and toys in hopes of showering by myself while they're awake and that it never works and they come find me upstairs anyway because we don't have a lock on our bathroom door, but that would just make this post longer, and that would be really pathetic.

Anyway, life is not that bad. I really am happy most of the time. I know that this won't last forever, and it's actualy almost over. I'm going to go lay down for a few minutes, then I'm going to go take a long, hot shower, all by myself.

Girls Night 8

The boys took an extremely long time getting to sleep last night, so Alyssa and I were left with very little time for Girls Night. We put together a Disney Princess puzzle. I wanted to make necklaces copying the one Jenny Gennings wore to Jeremy Hanna's wedding last weekend, but I couldn't find the right beads at Wal Mart, and the practice necklace I made with the beads I did find turned out not nearly as cute as the original. So next week I'm going to go to Michaels or Craft Warehouse and do things right.

I'm still loving Girls Night. After putting the puzzle away, and as we were turning from the table to head upstairs, Alyssa said, "I love you, Mom." I told her that I love her, too.