A little to the right, mom

Ethan has always been a sucker for a good back rub.  He takes after his mom like that.  Jared knows he can get me to stay up really super late if he just keeps rubbing my back.  Ethan is the same way.  You can get him to stop a temper tantrum by rubbing his tummy or arm or really anything.  Just start rubbing and he starts calming.  It's like a magic button.  I recently discovered that this trick works at bedtime too.  He could be chatting your ear off as he's climbing in bed, but start rubbing his back and within a few words he's slowed to a babble, then stopped altogether.  Within a minute his eyes are fluttering to stay open.  It's some kind of natural phenomenon really.  All I do is rub his back for a "minute" (he can't tell time yet and so a minute can be as long as I feel like rubbing for and is usually in direct correlation to how ornery he's been that day) and then have him flip so I can rub his tummy.  Just as long as both sides get rubbed, you won't hear a word of complaint about putting him to bed.  

Yesterday Ethan was being a pickle to his siblings all afternoon.  Pick, pick, pick, aggravate here, aggravate there, stir up some trouble over there and here and see how upset he can get everyone around him.  Needless to say, his siblings complied with his pot-stirring plans.  It's a phase, I'm sure, but I'm not too fond of it.  My mild-mannered, sweet talk'n, snuggle lov'n sweetie pie has...left.  I'm excited for his return.  Until then, I keep reminding myself that it's just a phase.  So by dinner time last night, my patience was more than thin.  It was gone.  That boy needed to be in bed quickly.  For my sake and his own.  So he had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before daddy got home and then was tucked in by dad- who did not rub his back because he'd been naughty to mommy. He was asleep within minutes anyway.  Ethan's in that awkward stage where he really needs a nap in the afternoon, but if he gets one, he's up till 10 pm.  I find that idea HORRIBLE.  My mommy patience is wearing thin by 6 and any kids up past 9 will receive the full brunt of ZERO patience.  It's best for us all if the children are making their way to their beds between 7 and 9.  So Ethan can't get a nap.  But every day around 4 pm I find myself doubting that choice.  As I was yesterday.  The answer was to put that boy to bed fast.  

Around 3 am last night, Ethan comes tip-toeing in my room.  I usually sleep pretty lightly and woke right up.

Me: "Ethan, what do you need?"

Ethan: "Mommy, I really need a back rub.  I didn't get my back rub.  I can't sleep."  (He's been asleep for hours).  "Can you pleeeeease rub my back?" 

Who could say no to such pure sweetness???  No one, I tell you.  So I drug my poor sleepy body out of bed and down the hall to watch Ethan's eyes flutter closed while I rubbed his back.  I was pretty sure he was completely asleep and started to pull the blankets up when he promptly, and with quite surprising alertness, flipped over eagerly and said, "Tummy too!".  I just about burst out laughing at 3 am!  2 minutes later, he was out like a light.  

I understand, sometimes you just need a back rub. 

The Christmas Dinner that wasn't

Our family was sharing a particularly nasty stomach flu at Christmas time.  The children were praying for Jared and Owen that they would feel better by Christmas (so it wouldn't interfere with presents).  And I was praying that I wouldn't get sick until after all my Christmas work was done.  Since that wasn't finished until about 2 am on Christmas morning, I was blessed to not get sick until late Christmas morning (after presents).  The kids and I both got what we had been asking for :)
Since I was sick on Christmas Day, we decided to hold off on making our big Christmas dinner.  We figured we'd get to it in a couple days.  But then Owen got sick again. So we waited a few more days. Then Coleson and Ethan got sick.  So we waited a few more days.  Then Jared got sick all over again.  So we waited some more.  THEN I got sick again this past Sunday!! &%$@#  This stomach bug is the pits!! We've been rotating this for all of Christmas break. We can't seem to shake it. Anyway, yesterday afternoon I was feeling better, so I called Jared to see how he was feeling and if he was up to our belated belated belated Christmas dinner. He was. So I threw it all together.  Fortunately it wasn't too hard because we'd made a few dishes already when we thought we'd felt up to eating it, but turned out we didn't.  So those were waiting in the freezer.  I made up some rolls and put the ham in the oven.  Voila!
We finally sat down to our very belated Christmas dinner. I didn't feel like making it fancy like usual with our pretty Christmas plates and table ware. But everything was yummy.  Jared asked me if it was worth the wait.  I don't know, by then it was just kind of like, "let's just eat this food so we can get it out of the fridge".  Not the usually mouth-watering anticipation.
While we were chatting and eating, Owen started to choke.  Fortunately he could breath enough to cough, it was just a matter of him working out whatever had gone down the wrong pipe.  I pulled him out of his high chair to comfort him because he was scared.  And then what happened??  He threw up all over me.  Nice.  I really didn't mind too much.  I knew it wasn't because he was sick (that's gross) or gagging himself (that's aggravating).  It was because he really needed it out.  I just looked at Jared and said, "we were destined to have someone throw up at this meal. It just HAD to happen".  A nice Christmas dinner just wasn't meant to be for us this year.  Oh well. What can you do? We'll try again next year.

Carrots anyone?

Coleson is a carrot freak.  He loves 'em- as pictured here.  He's always asking if I have any whole carrots in the fridge- which I don't often enough.  He's not interested in those baby carrots like most people like, the ones you can easily drench in ranch dipping and have a fairly equal carrot to ranch ratio.  No... he wants whole carrots.  No ranch.  I'm expecting him to turn orange any day now.  Actually, that reminds me, he WAS orange for a while when he was a baby.  I rushed him to the doctor when he was around 7 months old because he had a distinct orange tint and some family members were very concerned.  Turned out I got a pat on the back from our pediatrician, because he was turning orange from eating so many carrots and squash.  I wonder if you turn red from eating tomatoes or green from eating peas?

Gospel 101

So today at lunch the kids started talking about eternal life and eternal happiness.  I decided to keep quiet and see where it went.  They talked about being happy and how long you can be happy.  I was so proud when Katelyn interjected that Ethan would be happy forever because he could get resurrected and be happy in heaven forever.  Then everyone else joined in agreement that eternal happiness was much better.  As I sat quietly listening, I was so proud of them.

common sense, people

So yesterday was kindergarten round up for Katelyn.  Oh was she excited.  It was a Wednesday night, right during cub scouts, so of course I had to take all the little kids with me.  When they had round up for the boys, we met in the cafeteria and you filled out your forms while you sat at a table and then handed them in on your way out the door.  This time they had it set up to "stream line" the process.  Ha!!  There was a check in table that you had to wait in line to sign in and get some forms.  Then we had to go get a LONG line to the office to get on another list and some more forms.  Since I had a baby and a toddler that were more than ready for bed and Katie who really wanted to go explore the school- you can guess how much fun that line was.  Katie and Ethan got into it about running off to play in the gym.  Then all eyes were on me as they were arguing and Owen was crying for me to please take him home and put him to bed. Please mom.  I just wanted to stomp out at that point.  And the kicker was that the parent who was at the front of the line was just chatting up a storm with the secretary so the line was going NO WHERE.  Fantastic.  I mustered all my mommy patience and we made it the stink'n 20 minutes it took get through that line.  Oh then, it was on to the next line.  Thankfully it went a lot faster.  By the time it was over I wanted to scream.  But instead I left.  Stream line my foot.

Strawberries Galore!

Friday I overheard some ladies talking about a strawberry sale over at Marsh and decided I had to have some strawberries for making some jam.  The strawberries were not that great (to be expected since it's winter), but they were fine with enough sugar and cooked into jam.   Then Teresa texted me Saturday morning that Meijer was having an even better sale (10/$10) and I definitely wanted in on that deal.  So she got me 11 more pounds.  So in total I had 19 pounds of strawberries to process.  Since Coleson had ISTEP Monday morning, I let him have the rest of the day off from school.  And that meant we had time to make jam.  We started with the plucking.  Katie and Ethan were big helpers too.  They took care of handing berries to us.  And then they disposed of the stems we plucked.

I bought these new pluckers on Amazon a few weeks ago and was excited to try them out.  They're pretty awesome.  Usually after that many berries, my fingers would be sore from stem plucking, but not with this baby. 


Katie also doubled as the photographer so I got to be in some of the pictures.  She had a cold coming on so she didn't get to help too up close with the berries.  But she and Ethan did eat quite a lot of them. 


After the plucking and cleaning it was on to cooking the jam.  I started rotating batches on the stove- there were 6 batches in all-  while Katie and Ethan entertained Owen.  They did a pretty good job of it because he was just laughing like crazy at his silly siblings.

 

This is one CUTE baby!!!  Can you see his big smile under there?

When I went to get more sugar in the food storage room, I found that the sugar was hard as a rock.  I set Hunter to work breaking up the rocks.  You know, it's all about finding the right job for the right kid.  Hunter usually doesn't really care for helping in our projects- he loses interest and wanders off.  But this sugar job kept his attention and then some.  He spent more than an hour hunched over the bucket chopping.  It was one of his textile things- the grains of sugar had him mesmerized.   But by bedtime he had that entire 5 gallon bucket back to usual fine sugar.  And I'd kept him busy for all that time.  It was the right job for him.


Tuesday a snow storm blew in and we spent all of Tuesday afternoon snuggled at home making jam.  As the batches were coming off the stove and cooling the kids were SO excited to get some.  They were licking spoons and bowls.  I had to make sure everything was staying sterile that still needed to be.  Fresh jam is even better with fresh warm bread so I made 6 loaves of bread too. The bread is just a way to get the jam to your mouth.  My kids are funny that way.  Give them a pile of candy or the choice of homemade bread and jam- and 9 times out of 10 they'd pick the bread and jam.  I made an actual dinner Tuesday night, but shouldn't have bothered because everyone filled up on bread and jam.  But that's the reason I made it, because they love it so much.  Ethan was so worried about missing the jam that he didn't want to take his nap so he got his pillow and blanket and waited on the kitchen floor. 

All in all we made 15 pints of strawberry jam out of 5 batches (the 6th batch we ate out of the pan before it even made it to jars :).  It's been a yummy week.

Suspicious night noises

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, not to Owen, but to the sound of whispers and little feet in the hall way.  I sleep on the side of the bed that looks directly down the hallway (since I sleep much lighter than Jared) so that way I can just sit up and see right down the hall.  Just for reasons like this.  After my eyes adjusted I could see Katie and Ethan hunched over and tip-toeing down the hall with their pillows and whispering to each other.  I looked at my watch.  4 am.  Weird.  Usually Katie and Ethan sleep like rocks until 7 am.  I can go in their rooms and check on them in the middle of the night, put clothes away, move their blankets around and they usually don't even stir- until 7 am.  So really strange that they're up at 4.  And even more strange that they're carrying their pillows away from their bedrooms.   I laid there and thought before acting.  I knew they had built a fort out of pillows yesterday afternoon.  And there had been some talk about how fun it would be to sleep in it.  Wouldn't it be cute if they were headed down there to cuddle up and fall asleep together??  That would be precious.  But was that a chance I was willing to take?  What if they went down there and ended up wrestling and waking up all the way and then wouldn't go back to sleep at all and then I had to get up and stay up with them just to keep them quiet so the rest of the house could sleep?  Not a chance I was willing to take.  So I tip-toeed down the hall after them to walk out to the living room and find them piling their blankets and pillows on the couch to have a sleep over.  It looked like they'd been at it for a while.  I must not have been sleeping so lightly after all.  Katelyn insisted that Ethan had wanted her to go wake him up.  And he did look like a very excited accomplice.  None-the-less, I shewed them off to their beds.  Katie also insisted that she simply wasn't tired anymore- which is pretty unlike her.  She needs her sleep.  But I didn't want to argue about it anymore, so I let her read books with her light on and door closed as long as she stayed quiet.  About 10 minutes later she got up and turned her light off and went back to bed- where she stayed until 8:30- just to make up for lost time.  Ethan slept late too.  Those sleepovers can be a beast.

Lunch with cousins

Monday was President's Day (no school!!) and so Charlotte and I wanted to get the kids together.  We met in Crawfordsville for a quick McDonald's lunch date.  We had a limited time because Katie had ballet that we had to get to.  I felt so bad when it was time to break up the fun.  Our kids do surprisingly well whenever we do anything together.  Despite the fact that we were loud (just by volume of people) the kids didn't run around screaming or being maniacs or get obnoxious or rude.  They sat and talked and talked and talked some more- although since they were all talking together it was loud in that way.  When it was time to go, Hunter and Elena were sitting at a table sit 6 inches away from each other nose to nose talking intensely about ninjas.  Anyway, they all behaved so nicely.  You know how you have people that you really like hanging out with because you know you're children will always get along nicely and be good??  That's Konrad, Elena, and Vaughn.
Here's some pictures of our nice lunch date.

I gave Coleson and Konrad money and sent them up to buy ice cream cones for all the kids. When I was gone in the bathroom changing Owen, Katie accidentally dropped her cone on the floor.  Charlotte said she handled it like a trooper (not even a tear) so we had to promptly replace hers.  Here's a picture of them all happily lapping up their ice cream.  Vaughn was enjoying his so much- it was pretty much the cutest thing of the day.


The other day I couldn't find my phone for anything.  I just knew I had brought it downstairs with me and I had only done one thing and then gone back upstairs.  So it had to be in that one place.  I looked all over for it and then finally in exasperation I said out loud, "what did I do with that phone?", to which Ethan promptly says in his adorable matter-of-fact voice, "oh well mom, I was keeping it safe for ya" as he goes right over to the cushion on the floor that he'd hidden my phone underneath.  Yea, keeping it safe for me...sure thing babe.

Jared gets to drive Katie to preschool 3 mornings a week (M,W,F) since I found a preschool just like a mile from his shop.  Very convenient.  So he drives her over and then I go in town at lunch-time to pick her up.  Anyway, Katelyn is a talker.  I've heard this is common of girls.  But it is so different from the boys.  Not that they are quiet- by ANY means.  But they just talk about stuff.  Most of it you can tune out.  Katelyn wants to have a conversation, though.  And most of the time she's talking about real things.  Like what we should do after school and what order things will happen in today.  Or how she had left something in a place at home and really hoped it'd be there when she got back or that she'd said something to someone and how they felt about it.  Conversation type things.  And she pretty much goes non-stop from one thing to another.  Constantly.  And it's worse when there's no brothers to have to share conversation time with. So Jared said the other morning that she was talking away and he pipes in with his occasional, "oh really?" when she says, "oh I wasn't talking to you, dad-I was talking to myself."  Ha!!!  Jared said it was so funny.  Then a little bit later she says, "OK dad now I'm talking to you".  Funny girl!

My Christmas decorations are still out. Ridiculous, I know, but true.  I have had them all collected and sitting on a shelf waiting to be actually wrapped up and put away in the Christmas boxes.  So last night I felt motivated to get the job done.  Katelyn really wanted to spend some time with me and do our girl things.  I said that I wasn't doing anything fun, just planning to spend the evening working on putting away the Christmas stuff.  She excitedly wanted to help too.  She's often like that.  She wants to help with dishes.  She wants to help with dusting.  Boring things that I usually get ditched to do alone.  I wonder if it's a girl thing or if she's just a helpful child or if it's that she's doing that follow her same gender parent to do whatever they do thing (the boys will do WHATEVER Jared does).  So I'm not really sure why she's like that- maybe it's all of those reasons together.  But I have to often remind myself to involve her in what I'm doing because I'm really not used to someone wanting to be with me.  Usually Jared is the cat's meow.  When he's home, no one wants to hang with me.  It's pretty nice to have a friend. 

We have a saying in our house, "Mom gets it done, and dad makes it fun".  Maybe that's why no one wants to hang with me.  I'm the task-master.  But that's what my job is.  I'm the manager.  That's what I do all day.  Coleson you need to do this, Hunter you need to do this, Katie this, Ethan this, and back to the beginning again.  On a good day I can keep everyone up and moving on what needs done and then by the time they wander off, their jobs are all done.  But if I don't stay on top of assigning and reminding, they wander off- jobs not done.  Then a little while later I'd have to try and roust them for their chores again.  So that's why I'm the no fun task master.  I need to work on being more fun.

That's it for today. 

I'm back

I haven't blogged in a really REALLY long time.  Like long enough to get pregnant, be pregnant (which takes a good long 9 months), and have a now 5 month old baby.  Here's some pictures of said baby. It's not just the pictures-  he really is JUST SOOOO adorable!!!

3 months and so so so so cute!!!!

4 months- he loves those fingers!

He really loves those fingers.

5 months

I have one question for myself- what have I been doing with my time?  Couldn't really say- might be: nursing, cooking breakfast, school, nursing, cooking lunch, school, nursing, cooking dinner...bedtime...nursing...repeat. Occasional baths, stories, laundry, grocery trips, preschool pick ups, and other life's necessities tucked in there too. Such is the life of a mom right?  And the weird part is I enjoy doing it (well most of the time- no one's perfect).  But no where in the there has there been time for mom to blog and catch up on scrapbooking or do other "just for mom" tasks.  Then I realized the other day, it's not like anyone's ever going to say" hey mom, why don't you take a few minutes for yourself this afternoon".  Haha!! Can you imagine?!  So I'm going to have to just take them.  Another thing I realized, is that I find more humor in the mundane tasks and sometimes annoying moments of life when I can think about how I'm going to try to spin it into a blog post.  I've been visiting friends' blogs again and remembering just how much I enjoyed writing about the every day moments.  So....I'm going to try blogging...again.  I know I said this before.  Whatever.  I'm starting over and there's no rules about how many times I can start over again again.  I might make myself a rule to write a new post and then write something from the past 15 months to kind of fill in.  Maybe.  We'll see what happens.  Follow along if you can.

So, to kick off with, here' s a funny moment from the middle of the night last night.  Owen at 5 months is cute, adorable, cuddly, smiley, babbling, oh and he LOVES his fingers.  We often joke that he must have chocolate or strawberry flavored fingers.  So anyway, last night he woke up with just a shrill cry- part of the little temper he's been cultivating lately also.  (It's actually a cute little temper because his cry turns from whiny to shrill as if he's saying "I SAID I WANT YOU...NOW!"  And who can resist being wanted that badly??).  Jared was fast asleep when Owen let out this cry and as I was rolling over to put my glasses on, Jared mumbles (really pretty much still asleep) "he's an angry elf". HA!!!! (That's a direct quote from a favorite family movie- Elf). It was so funny because Jared was pretty much asleep and the comment was so perfectly pertinent.  I just about burst out laughing at 4 am. 

A few weeks ago we were on a trip to Nauvoo to see some friends get married (John & Like Hasek).  Anyway, we stopped at Wal-Mart (because no trip is complete without a stop at the local Wal-Mart).  Jared ran in for some breakfast items (good man also grabbed me some Reese Cup ice cream scoring him definite brownie points).  While I was in the van with the kids we were talking about how Owen's my baby now, and Ethan was my baby before (but he'll always be my baby), and Katie was my baby before him (but she'll always be my baby too) etc. The conversation ended and we moved on to something else.  Then 5 minutes or so later, Hunter whacked Ethan (who knows why- boys in the back seat together), and Ethan says without even a pause, and just dripping with drama, "Mommy, Hunter hurt your baby!"  I just burst out laughing- which was apparently actually not the reaction he wanted from me.   But it was SO funny.

Coleson is very bright.  (This is just to preface because I do use the word dumb (for lack of a better word) a lot in the following paragraph.)  He was on the A/B Honor Roll last semester.  So he's really not dumb.  But sometimes....the questions?? I just don't understand.  I was sitting in my normal spot between him and Hunter at the island while we were working on school work and Coleson looked at me in all seriousness and said, "how many wheels are on a bicycle?"  It'd been one of those weeks full of duh moments for him and I honestly could not answer the question without saying something I'd regret.  So I just looked at him and waited for it to occur to him the silliness of such a question.  And waited.  And waited some more.  All the while he was just staring back at me.  Eventually I had to laugh- more out of frustration at the week of dumb things leading up to the kicker of all dumb questions.   This is not a one time occurrence. Ttoday I told Coleson to come upstairs to take a shower.  He surprisingly came right up and went to the bathroom, but then came out about 2 minutes later- unshowered.  I asked him what he was supposed to be doing and he looked at me very seriously and said he didn't know.  I stared back and waited for it to come to him.  Nothing.  Finally, Katelyn (who was also downstairs when I'd told Coleson to go take the shower) came upstairs and said "Coleson aren't you supposed to be in the shower?"  Coleson says "oh".  Thank you, Katelyn!  Whoever said there are no dumb questions obviously didn't have a 10 year old boy.

To redeem Coleson a little from the last paragraph and using the word dumb a few too many times, I'll also say that Coleson is doing a fantastic job with our chickens lately.  We had always intended for the chickens to be taken care of mostly by the boys.  But the boys were still pretty young when we started chickens.  This past winter Jared has completely relinquished the chickens to Coleson.  Coleson cleans the coop, looks for needed repairs and then does them, and then of course feeds them, waters them, and collects the eggs. It takes him about 45 minutes to an hour every day.  It's been very interesting to see the change that has come over him as he's developed some pride and ownership in his work.  When Jared first turned it over to him, there were a few days Coleson didn't feed them.  When chickens run out of food or water they stop laying eggs.  It can take weeks for them to recoup and start laying again.  Happy chickens= laying chickens.  So during the time they weren't laying, I had to buy eggs at the store.  When I picked up those eggs from the store shelf, Coleson was actually almost offended and asked if I had to buy them.  I did.  Boy, did that hit home.  Every day since, he proudly announces how many eggs he collected from the hens that day- beaming smile and all.  Lesson learned.

Here's one for Hunter and then I'm done for tonight.  It starts out not so funny.  Hunter is in charge of taking out the trash.  And then on Fridays he has to take the trash cans down the lane and on Saturday's (after the trash is picked up) he has to bring them back to the house.  A few Saturdays ago, we sent him out to collect the trash cans before dark.  A few minutes later we heard a blood curdling scream.  Moms know the difference in their children's cries and screams and what each one means.  There's the 'sad', 'mad', 'angry', 'you took my toy', 'I have a not so serious owey', and then there's the HURT cry and the truly scared cry.  Hunter was screaming in both. The second I heard it I was up and running to the window and yelling at Jared who was closer to the front door than me to get outside to help him.  Turns out he was being attacked by a dog.  Of all the kids in the world to be attacked by a dog, why did it have to be Hunter?  He's already so worried and so afraid of so many things.  This definitely didn't help.  The dog was the neighbor across the street's dog (some very large less common breed who we've never had a problem with before).  They had been out playing when Hunter came down the lane for the trash cans.  And he must've looked like fun- because he is.  When he ran away that was even more fun.  Fortunately, his screaming must've scared the dog off because he only got a nip out of his leg.  But obviously he was still pretty upset. Dr. Dad cleaned up the wound and then we let him play a game on the phone for a bit.  Or so we thought.  We got busy with baths and showers and putting kids to bed.  We sent Hunter to bed (but forgot to take away the phone).  Turns out he played quietly in his bed on the phone until we went to bed.  Then he crept downstairs to play.  And that is where I found him when I was leaving for early church meetings the next morning.  He had been awake ALL night long on the phone playing games.  And we have an automatic turn off timer so if the phone is idle for more than 5 minutes it locks and has to have the pass code to turn back on.  So he hadn't let it sit idle for more than 5 minutes.  He was literally awake playing ALL night.  And there he sat on the couch downstairs with his sheepish grin the next morning.  I just stood there completely dumbfounded.  And then I left.  What else was there to say?  It was kinda my fault for not getting the phone back.  But, Hunter sure won't be enjoying any free game time on the phone again for quite some time.

Valentine's Day

Katie & I making cupcakes for her preschool class.

So for Valentine's Day this year Katie and I decided to surprise the boys.  We went to the dollar store and picked up some cheapo decorations.  Then, while the boys were at scouts Wednesday night, we decorated the kitchen and dining room for our girls night (and Ethan).  Every Wednesday is girls night since Hunter turned 8 and is going to scouts now.  We get Ethan and Owen in bed by 7 and spend the evening doing girly things.  One of our favorite activities is putting together princess puzzles.  Katie is really good at puzzles.  Anyway, I digress.  So, Wednesday night we decorated the kitchen.  We let Ethan help because he was just so excited about the whole decorating idea and he had been with us at the dollar store.  It turned out very Valentine's-y.   We put hearts on each person's chair with a love note from one of the 3 of us.  And when the boys came home from scouts I wouldn't let them in the kitchen.  When everyone got up Thursday morning, they came in to see the surprise- plus I had also gotten up early to make a fun breakfast.  We had blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup and apple pancakes with apple cider glaze and bacon and eggs.  Our family LOVES breakfast and it was a fun way to surprise everyone.  Katie had wanted to help with the breakfast, but her bed had some magnetic pull on her that morning and no matter how many times I went to try and pull her out of bed, she was stuck.  Until the bacon hit the pan.  That's when everyone started following their noses to the kitchen :)  I had also put a little gift for each person on their plates.  The boys got a box of chocolates and Katie got a little chocolate and a heart necklace.  It was a fun Valentine's morning.  

Duberstairs blankie FOUND!!!

Today we were all at the church practicing for the Primary Program tomorrow.  Katelyn, Andy, Jared, and I were in the library making copies and piles.  I asked one of them for a stapler and bent down to get it on the shelf when I saw it...Duberstairs blankie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Someone had put it there for safe keeping until its owner came along.  Thank you, special someone, for seeing that it was someone's special blankie who would be looking for it!
I don't know if I've ever seen Katie squeal so much or smile so big. :)
And that's why we have rules- like blankies don't leave the house.

Insights

My parents came for grandpa's funeral and then stayed to visit for a week with us.  It's interesting the differences and changes that happen in a person's life.  The grandpa that my dad grew up with and the grandpa that I knew were almost like 2 different people.  Grandpa was younger then and had a lot of learning to do.  By the time he was my grandpa, he was different with me. 
But aren't we all that way?  My parents are different grandparents than they were parents.  Jared agrees that his parents have changed too.  I can even see a difference in my own parenting from when Coleson was a baby to Owen now.  Isn't that what we're meant to do?  Mature and grow in wisdom.  I guess it'd just be nice if when we die everyone doesn't say that we started out too bad or ended off too bad. 

Last time

They're all gone now.  My grandparents.  I'm really very sad about it.  The feeling of that unconditional love that comes from really wonderful grandparents.  I'm so blessed to say that I've had 4 really wonderful grandparents. 
Yesterday was grandpa's funeral.  I stood there holding his hand and sobbing inside, but trying to stifle my tears so the children didn't see me crying too much.  I miss him.  I miss his annoying mustache that tickles my hear when he hugs me and kisses my cheek.  And I miss him hugging me. 

Not grandpa

Grandma passed away on a Tuesday.  I guess it's fitting that grandpa should too.  Dad called this morning to tell me that grandpa was in the hospital.  They'd taken him there last night and didn't think he'd last through the night.  His heart was barely beating.  But somehow he did.  And dad called me first thing this morning.  I wish he'd called me in the middle of the night.  I'd have left right then.  Since dad didn't have a medical update from the doctor, I called the hospital myself (sometimes I take matter in my own hands rather than waiting for the chain- Jared calls it ram-rod-y and sometimes it gets me in trouble).  I spoke to his nurse who was glad to hear from some family.  So I was glad I'd called.  At first she said she couldn't talk to me about his care (privacy laws and all), but then I explained that I was his nearest (geographically) relative and beloved granddaughter.  I could hear her ask if it was alright with him if she talked about his medical care to me and in the back ground I could hear grandpa saying, "goodness yes," in his 'why are you asking such a silly question' grandpa voice.  She explained that he was dying, but didn't know how long he would be.  She said that it could be a few hours to a day or two.  Just that his heart was slowly winding down and grandpa had asked for no life saving measures to be taken. She also said that he was in and out of coherence. Then she let me talk to him after she explained things. He was practically whispering, but surprisingly perky.  He recognized me right away and told me how much he'd loved me.  I choked out a few "I love you's" between sobs.  I told him I'd be there as soon as I could.  But it wasn't soon enough.  By the time I'd found someone to watch all the kids and packed up the baby and picked up Jared from work (because I really didn't think I could do this trip alone) he was already gone.  We were almost to Kokomo when dad (who was at the airport on his way here trying to get here before he died) called and said he'd just passed away.  I'm not sure if I'll ever forgive myself that he died all alone today.  I should've been there.  Not a hospital room full of nice hospital staff. 

Reporting a lost duberstairs blankie...

Daddy has a "no blankies leave the house" rule.  We did a lot of work for Katelyn and Andy's reception and we were out really late Friday night and had to leave early early again Saturday morning to get back to work at it.  I decided to break the rule and let Katelyn bring her blankie.  I figured it would be safe.  We'd only be at home, in the car, and at church.  At the end of the day duberstairs blankie was no where to be found.  So totally my fault.  Katelyn was crushed.  We've looked everywhere and can't find it anywhere.  Have you seen it??

Katie's last day of gymnastics

Katie has really had fun at gymnastics.  She loves the jumping, tumbling, and climbing.  And she loves that it's just for girls.  Here she is striking a pose on the last day of gymnastics!!  Go Katie!!

Sweet brothers

Boys can actually stop the craziness for a few minutes to be sweet to each other.  And sometimes they even let me capture the moment just to prove to myself later that it did happen :)

Katelyn & Andy's wedding reception

Congratulations to Katelyn & Andy!!  They are like the most meant-to-be-together couple we've ever known.  They drove over to Nauvoo on Friday for their wedding and we helped prepare for the reception on Saturday.  I'm in my second trimester now and have tons of energy.  Which is a good thing.  Katelyn assigned me to be wedding coordinator and there was a lot to do.  But it was a lot of fun!! And I was so happy to help such a wonderful couple.  The reception went wonderfully.  Katelyn was the flower girl and Ethan was the ring bearer.  They did a very simple civil ceremony too because Andy is a convert and so none of his family was able to go to the temple for their wedding.  My little cuties added the perfect amount of adorable to their reception.

Strawberry picking with Teresa

One reason Katies' manicure didn't last was because we went strawberry picking.  I knew if we waited until after the wedding and tried to go picking the next week, there wouldn't be anything left.  So we went.  And boy did we get strawberries.  It was so fun.  And so yummy.  We didn't get as many as we have other years, mostly because of the overly wet spring we'd had, but we did get enough for some jam and plenty to snack on while we made the jam.

We LOVE strawberries!!

Big girls get their nails done

Katelyn Hasek asked my Katelyn to be her flower girl (ironically they are both Katelyn Marie's and their initials are both KMH- until this Saturday when Katelyn Hasek changes to Katelyn Kensiger).  Anyway, as part of the bridal party, Katelyn was invited to go get her nails done with all the other girls.  She felt like such a big girl!!  She had a lot of fun!  She actually did just fine sitting there in that chair for 30 minutes to go through all the steps for a manicure.  I was impressed.  Not that it actually made it a whole week to Saturday, but it was fun anyway.