It's That Time Again!

Another update. Not that there's much to update, like usual. Just normal life happenings here, nothing momentous.

It's BEAUTIFUL here. It seems like it's almost skipped Spring and moved straight into Summer. And everything exploded into bloom all at once. It's been a spectacular Spring and I don't think I've ever been more moved by the Earth waking up. Probably partly because I feel like, in a lot of ways, I'm waking up myself. This has been a good year for us with a lot of good (little) things happening, and it's been a nice feeling. We won the Health and Fitness Challenge, so I feel like I have a new me--body and spirit. Rob is in the Bishopric and I'm a Primary teacher, so we have new church responsibilities. I'm writing articles for M and C, so I have a new job. I'm on an indoor soccer team now--a renewing of old loves. And we did a No Whining Chart for Miciah (more details to come), so I feel like a new Mom! Lots of newness going around.

And then Spring came. We had a late winter storm in mid-March, and it stayed colder off-and-on until early April. And then WHAM it was 70 and 80 degrees out and all the flowers, trees, and grass that hadn't been growing or blooming yet said, "Oh. That's right," and they all decided to bloom and grow, all at once. Like I said, it's been amazing. Spring isn't my favorite season, but if I could have kept that feeling all year, I wouldn't mind that at all. Euphoria.


The Immunology Conference and Rob's Knee

Rob enjoyed the Immunology Conference all right. He said it was warmer here than it was in San Diego, and that's just not right. He didn't get out of it as much as he would have liked, but I didn't feel that bad for him since he got to eat out every night on someone else's tab.

While he was in San Diego, he injured his knee. The bad knee. The one that's already had surgery. Nice. He's been wanting to go back into the doctor for some time about other little things like his hip being really tight, and his ankle that he sprained a few months ago, but that's still hurting him. With the knee injury I finally insisted he go in to the doctor that did his knee surgery. It's normal to have some knee pain kneeling, but for it to surface 3 years after surgery, and while just walking? Odd.

By the time he got into the doctor, his knee wasn't hurting as bad, but the doc still sent him to a physical therapist. The doc took some X-rays and said his knee still looks good, and his ACL is still tight. So no worries there. And the physical therapist has been very helpful. He gave Rob lots of stretches to do and it's already helped (he's only been doing them for 3 days). What they think this whole thing all boils down to (the knee, ankle, and hip problems) is the fact that Rob's been walking differently since he hurt his knee (that was 6 years ago!). He's changed his gait to compensate for the injury, and it's finally caught up with him (Rob took off his Sunday shoes that he's had for the same amount of time he's had his injury (we're buying him new ones with the new suit he needs and we'll buy come Friday--the shoes are trashed and the suit is now too big) and showed me the bottoms of them. The right shoe--the treads were almost gone in places. But you could still see all the treads on the left shoe). They're hoping with physical therapy and the stretches, they can bring everything back to normal and set it all right. ... It's kind of a bummer to pay all this money for X-rays and doctors and physical therapists, but we've been through a period where Rob didn't have a working knee, and it wasn't good. We're willing to pay the money to make it right again. It wouldn't be very fun for Rob to have to be in pain the rest of his life.

That's Rob's news.

Indoor Soccer

My news. I am on a co-ed indoor soccer team. We're not very good, but we have fun and that's what matters (which is the slogan for losers, I know). I've only played one game so far, but it surprised me what comes to me still and what I've lost. It was nice to pull out my cleats and put them on again. I made Rob address my shoes like they were my old friends. I feel like that's what they are. I was trying to figure out how long I've had them, and I know it was since mid-high school. That's over 10 years. They're my friends. I got an assist at our game. The other team was MUCH better than we were (they've obviously played before and together): most of the people on our team have never played before at all. But it was most fun to watch the game from the bench and see who got called fouls on for what. One of the girls on our team--sweet, soft Sarah--got called on a foul. The guy stole the ball from her and was a few feet past her when he tripped, and the ref called a foul. Not only did she not actually foul the guy, she is not capable of fouling anyone. I called out (softly but loud enough), "Make sure he ties his shoes next time!"

The most exciting thing of the night was about our goalie. One of the guys on the other team who kicked the ball HARD (I'd forgotten how much more powerful guys are than girls. Every time he shot the ball, I turned away. I have a bruise on my upper arm from where I stopped one of his shots (on accident)) shot a ball right into our keeper's eyeball. His glasses flew from his face and landed a few feet away. The ref stopped play and gave the shooter a dirty look. The guy apologized profously, said he did it on accident, and got off the field fast to appease the ref. Our goalie went off, too, cause he couldn't see through one eye. His glasses weren't broken, thankfully, but he had a HUGE shiner. Didn't bruise up too colorful, but it was swollen, and his eyeball was a cool color red. :) He said he was thankful he didn't get seriously injured. Yeah. Cause it's all fun and games till someone ...

More Soccer, Different Person

Miicah is playing soccer this season. We signed her up months ago. When we got the first call from her coach, he informed us that all the games are on Sundays. So that put us in a cruch. What do we do? Does she quit the league or do we just let her play the 7 games? Rob and I weren't willing to make her suffer for our mistake (we should have just found out more details at the beginning), so we let her stay on the team, though we told her she wouldn't be playing in this league in the fall. Rob and I feel like idiots. The games are all "after church". They are for people who go to church for an hour from 10 - 11. But our church is from 10 - 1 and the games are usually AT 1. So we even have to pick up and leave before church is over. Oh well.

After Miciah's first practice she came home and announced, "I am a genius at soccer!" That isn't true, but she has a lot of fun playing, and she's been playing for 3 weeks and I'm super impressed with how much she's improved in that time. Plus it's warm outside now, so she's been kicking the ball around outside for fun. I showed her a move and it was hard for her to do. She said, "Practice makes perfect" and then tried over and over until she could do it. Kids are amazing.

So far Miciah is one of the weaker players, but none of them are fantastic: they're all 6- and 7-year-olds. They're just out having a good time.

I have learned several things through Miciah's involvement in soccer:
1. I'm the same kind of soccer parent that my parents were. I never really wanted to be, but now that I'm there, it sounds a whole lot nicer than being any other way. I didn't sit where the parents are "supposed" to sit. The sun was in the wrong place to sit there. I stood behind the other team's parents. You could see the field better. ... And practices and games aren't social time for me.

2. I have a hard time stomaching parents and coaches who yell at the kids. Period. Did you know these kids are 6 and 7? What's your problem? Don't yell at them!!

3. It's harder than I thought to let my two little boys wander off to play on the cool dirt pile. :) Memories flooded back to me of big soccer fields with corn fields surrounding them, or a swamp, or woods, or random dirt piles. I let Elijah and Teancom walk over to the big dirt pile, one eye on the game, one on the pile. The whole time I knew they were fine, but it was harder than I thought to just let them play 100 yards away.

Miciah's team got slaughtered for one of the games, not because the other team was better, but because there was 1 girl on the other team that was a super star. I was half glad it wasn't my team, because the parents of the other girls felt the need to make their kids be as good as that one prodigy, and they yelled at their kids mercilessly. But it struck me while watching this little girl who was exceptional, "Am I looking at myself when I was little?" That sounds cocky, so I quickly abandoned the idea that I might be. But it was an interesting thought still. Here was this 7-year-old who already knew field positioning, who was running circles around the other girls. She scored maybe 7 goals all by herself. She could dribble. She could actually shoot. She was coordinated. ... I was amazed.

We have to find another league for Miciah in the Fall.

Thank You, Barbie Mariposa

And Barbie Mariposa. Miciah has been asking for Barbie Mariposa, the newest Barbie movie, since she saw the previews on Barbie as the Island Princess (her Christmas gift). I told her I'd think about it, but the problem is, there's no upcoming event to give it to her for. Her birthday isn't till October, and by then it'll be old news. I found it for a good price and so I bought it and then held on to it and waited for inspiration to strike. I decided we should have her earn it, but I wasn't sure what for. I thought maybe for reading a certain number of books, but she needs no encouragement along those lines. I thought for something to do with school, but again, what? So finally I just showed it to her. She was so excited. I told her that she needed to earn it and it came to me right then: A No Whining Chart. For 15 days she had to not whine. Every night she'd get a sticker and when the chart was full, she could have the movie.


It was a BLISSFUL 17 days. She missed 2 days and was in tears as she told me it was just too hard! But she made it and filled up the chart. By the end, I didn't even need to remind her to not whine. At first, it was "Miciah, that sounds like it might be whining," and she would quickly change her tone.

What amazed me most about this adventure wasn't that she could do it. What amazed me was how much I had been reacting to her whining. The whining drives me INSANE and I didn't realize until there wasn't any whining how much I was simply reacting to her yucky tone. I would reply not so nicely and she would feed off that and so on back and forth. By the end of those 17 days I was calmer, I wasn't yelling at my kids, and I was SO much happier with Miciah. It was easier for me to be patient with her, and for me to be able to see and love all her good points. Thank you, Barbie Mariposa. A few days after she had earned the movie she was back to whining and I sat down and talked with her about how much easier it is for me if she chooses not to whine. She said, "I did that chart so that I wouldn't whine for the REST OF MY LIFE?!!" It cracked me up. She's done really pretty well since, and it's been blissful for me.


Cotton Can Sport

Elijah is now a crack-up. The latest awesome thing he's come up with is Cotton Can Sport. No, you're not supposed to understand that. One night he just came up with this person: Cotton Can Sport. So far as I can tell, it's a combination of Cotton Candy and Sport. The person apparently brings lots of candy. I think he's also kind of super-hero-ish. He sits down and tells us lengthy meaningless stories about Cotton Can Sport. Usually Cotton Can Sport has a house. ...dramatic pause... And his own tools. ...dramatic pause with dramatic facial expressions... Rob and I have a hard time not laughing. It's pretty cute.

During that soccer game he loved playing on the huge dirt pile. He would go around to the backside of it where we could barely see him and sometimes he'd be out of sight for a few seconds. There came a point in time when I hadn't seen him for maybe a minute or two. I decided to send Rob over to check out where he was. Rob was turning to walk over there when the game behind us was stopped by the blow of the ref's whistle. And Rob says, "Elijah's in the middle of the field!" The ref stopped the game because our son was just strolling through their game. :) They ushered him to the sidelines and Rob went to claim him. It made me giggle that probably people were thinking, "What awful parents." Unless they were older parents, in which case they probably thought, "That's happened to us about 20 times."

Teancom

Teancom is now tan. It's Spring. It's just not right to have a kid that, like Rob, is instantly tan when Spring hits. People already have called him an Indian baby. :) That olive skin. Teancom adores being outside. He wakes up in the morning and wants to go outside as soon as possible. Then he takes a nap midday and wants to go out as soon as he wakes up. Sometimes I'll look outside to see what he's doing, and usually he's just standing there, enjoying the weather, the wind on his face, whatever. It's cute.

I'll send some pictures of Teancom at M's baptism. He loves dip. He walked up to M, who had a full plate of food, and started eating all the dip she had to go with her chips. Teancom loves to dip the chip (or carrot, whatever's available), suck off the dip, and then dip again. Gross. We finally got him his own plate of dip and had to take pictures of it.

I still gush Teancom about 80 times a day and he still lets me. Loving it.

High-Speed Internet

Oh! We did get high-speed internet, and that's big news for us. Sure, we're a few years behind the times, but better late than never. I've caught up on all the videos I was saving up to watch on youtube, and I've updated my facebook and myspace sites. I can actually check my gmail account now and logon to my bank page without it stalling and giving me errors.

And in light of the high-speed internet, it must be time for me to start a blog, since I've had several requests in the last month or two. My problem is that I'm lovin' the e-mail format. So I need feedback. To blog or not to blog? That is the question.

Love you all and hope you're enjoying your Spring as much as we are!!

Tamra and family

Dude, I was serious about anyone wanting baby guppies. Apparently guppies have babies like rabbits, and we have a fresh batch of 6. That's 4 that survived the first birthing, 4 that survived the second birthing, and 6 new ones. Too many guppies!

Here's a picture of Rob being goofy. So out of character for him.

And two of Teancom covered in dip. He was so cute with the dip. He had it all over him and was so excited to eat it (it was all he had for lunch, I think). Their Uncle Aaron who was there was teasing Teancom to make him give him some dip. Teancom finally looked at him like, "Well, if you REALLY want it, ..." and then started trying to put a chip in Aaron's mouth. Cute.

What is This? California?

So, I woke up this morning at something like 5:40 a.m. thinking I was in California. Why? Because the earth was shaking!! What is this? Someone forgot to tell the earth that we're in the Midwest and stuff like that doesn't happen here. A 5.4 centered in Illinois and felt all the way from Kansas to Florida. It lasted something like 20 seconds, and that's pretty long, too, for an earthquake. Wacky stuff, eh?

Anyways, just had to make mention of it. Enjoy your day!

Tamra

Invisible Mother

I don't know who wrote this, but it has a good message about motherhood.

Invisible Mother

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this ? Can you tie this? Can you open this??

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is theDisney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!?

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:
'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it. And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home.
And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

It's Spring!

And I can tell it's Spring because I've cleaned every room in my house, top to bottom, in the last 2 days. It helps that Rob is out of town and I have nothing better to do with my down time. I've cleaned things that haven't been cleaned all winter. Wiped down walls, mopped the downstairs, dusted in corners. ... It feels about the same as the homestretch of pregnancy. When the baby's coming in 3 weeks and I suddenly feel the urge to clean everything in sight, whether it's dirty or not. And since I'm clearly not having a baby in 3 weeks, this current cleaning spree must be related to the warm Spring weather!! The sun is warmer and brighter. The kids are playing outside. Every window in my house is open. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Health and Fitness Challenge

Well, Rob and I finished our Health and Fitness Challenge last Sunday. It was a wonderful 12 weeks of pushing ourselves to do better with our bodies, and make better choices. The challenge included putting in $25 per person into a pot at the start. The pot will now be split 2 ways: 2/3 to the winning team and 1/3 to the winning individual. From the beginning, I was pretty sure Rob would win the individual category. I don't know why I thought that. First off, because he had weight to lose, and that gives you points. Second off, Rob is insanely dedicated. He put in a near-superhuman effort and it paid off. He lost 23 lbs. and over 11 inches in 3 months! That's incredible. I also assumed when we started that I would win nothing. I have no weight to lose, though I did lose 3 inches. But apparently having a near-superhuman partner forces you to put in at least a really good effort. I did really well, too, and it ended up that Rob and I won the top team. That was actually shocking to me, but what a nice payback! Rob and I are pretty happy with the results, including the lifestyle changes it's helped us make.

We've made up our own type of challenge, including other areas of our lives. We've cut back on the exercise and eased up on the stricter eating plans, and added scripture reading and prayer. There's no money involved this time, but it's suprised us both that simply writing down what we've been doing is helpful to us. So on to more adventures!

Rob in San Diego, Miciah at Miami

Rob is in San Diego for an Immunology Conference until Thursday morning at 1 am when he should plop back in bed here, exhausted. I went to this conference with him last year, but it's kind of fun to be here with the kids, all by myself. I probably think it's fun so far because I'm 1 kid short. Miciah went up to be with ML (soon to be Thacker) at Miami U for Kidfest. It's a little sibling weekend and since M has no little siblings, she asked Miciah to come as her stand in. Miciah was SO excited, and she's loved it. I go to pick her up soon.

Then it'll be all of us at home. :) Sometimes it's not too easy for me to be alone with the kids. But it's funny how easy it can be to step up when needed. Though I should probably hold my opinion on all this until Friday. I think the hardest days will be Thursday and Friday, when Rob is home but has to go in to school.

No real news to share, so we'll do more stories.

Teancom

Teancom is talking up a storm and it's really cute it's the learning to talk stage where they say things half right and half not. One of my favorite things he says is "bird". It sounds something like "burd." He also decided for fun yesterday that birds should be scary, so he'll say "bird" and then do a fake scream as he runs away.

Teancom is also obsessed with dogs, though he's scared to death of most of them. He doesn't like things that bark or move quickly or unexpectedly. However he loves dogs. How does that work?

We've just had to move Cleo's food and water bowls onto the freezer because Teancom made a daily game of dumping her food into her water or her food and water on the floor or any other wonderful combination.

Elijah

Elijah is now a very capable train track builder. Well, he's always been pretty capable, but it seems like his skills have vastly improved lately. I'll include some pictures about his latest non-train track track. You know, the kind made out of the stuff from my living room. The last one was pretty impressive and included the dining room chairs that he made into a "bridge." Nice.

Today Elijah and I built a train track. He decided we should both be Thomas trains while we played. He was the big Daddy Thomas train and I was the kid Thomas train. I got to call him Daddy and he got to call me Sweety. 'Cept he can't say Sweety very well, so I was Fweety. And that's dang cute.

I realized, as we were playing, that I call him Sweety a lot. All my kids. "Are you hurt, Sweety?" Because he was saying just that to the Fweety train. "Are you okay, Fweety?" and "Fweety, I'll be right there!" It was comforting to know that it was a positive word and not something like, "Loser" or "Idiot." Not that I call my kids those things. I don't. But it was just nice in an unexpected, reassuring sense. One of those, "Oh, I'm doing things alright. That's nice" moments. Everyone can use a few of those.

Elijah has taken to saying, "That's it, Mom!" He'll get upset at me for telling him the way things are. You know, something like, "No, Elijah, you can't watch a movie right now." He'll scowl at me, stomp his feet, and say, "That's it, Mom! I'm taking a nap!" I respond how any mother would to such a threat: "Okay, Elijah." Then he'll stomp off to his room and slam the door. He'll spend a few minutes in his room, then come out and move on with his life. It's pretty funny. Alternate threats are, "I'm going to bed!" or "I'm never watching a movie again!" or "I'm throwing my toys away!" Empty threats, but it makes for an exciting day.

On Friday night Rob took Elijah to the store to buy a treat just because. Miciah wasn't around, so it was a fun daddy-son thing to do. On the way to the store, they passed McDonald's and Elijah asked if he could go. My kids typically call McDonald's "Old McDonald's" or something like that, but this time Elijah decided to call it "Chicken Noodles." That makes me laugh for some reason. On Saturday morning I had decided I would take the boys to McDonalds for lunch as a special treat. I asked Elijah if he would like to go. He said, "Yeah! Hey! I was just thinking about that last night in Daddy's car!" Then, "I'll go eat chicken noodle. No! They don't have chicken noodle." And then he laughed. It cracked me up.

Elijah is also very into pretend these days. He's still obsessed with Spider-Man, but thankfully he's moved on to include just about any superhero. He'll be Spider-Man or Super Man or the Avatar. Sometimes all of those at the same time. We had to buy Elijah new pants because he's grown, and while we were there we "had" to buy him a Spider-Man T-shirt. He doesn't actually have a Spider-Man T-shirt, just pajamas. He also saw Spider-Man swim trunks, so he got those, too. So all he wore for the first 2 days was those trunks, that shirt, and a hat we bought him. We were sitting down to dinner (where he has learned he can't wear his hat, and we've had no fights about this) and he was excited about something and telling me to call him Spider-Man and let me tell you this and what about all that. I turned to him in the middle of all his talking and said, "Spider-Man, would you like some green beans?" He stopped talking and got this big grin on his face. Then he giggled a little and said, "Thanks, Mom," like me calling him Spider-Man just made his year.

Elijah is still rambuncious, but as sensitive as ever. He's hard to discipline when he needs to be, so it's good that he only needs it about once a month. After disciplining Miciah, I never thought I'd think it was hard to discipline a child who was sensitive (why would that be bad? I would have paid MONEY for that with Miciah!). Turns out it's every bit as hard, just in different ways. Thankfully, Elijah isn't as full-time as Miciah was, but that's about the only difference.

Now that it's warmer, Elijah thinks he should be visiting all our neighbors. It doesn't help that R & C are 2 doors down, so he thinks he should be able to walk to any house on the street any time he wants. :) He has spent some time with R these days, which both of them have missed, I think. Elijah will walk down there and, once they open the door, he'll walk into the house like he owns it. The other day he walked down and R played with him for almost 2 hours. R said, "I fed him balogney because "it's his favorite." Then I fed him crackers because "it's his favorite." Then we played a hunting game." He also mentioned to Elijah about his pajamas. Funny enough, I never even notice when Elijah's in pajamas these days, he's in them so often. Someone will say, "That's cool Elijah's in his pajamas," and I'll typically respond with something like, "He is? Oh, right." Anyways, on that day R said, "Nice pajamas, Elijah," and Elijah said, "Yeah, they're AWESOME! But they're a little itchy," and proceeded to scratch his bum. And while that's funny, not sure how I feel about that.

Miciah

I don't usually have stories about Miciah, cause she doesn't say or do cute things any more. The things she does are now more sophisticated compared to the little 'uns. The other night her and Rob had a cute moment where he decided to tell her some real jokes. Usually the jokes we tell are lame stupid kid jokes. But this time Rob adapted some adult jokes a little and told them to her. She was laughing her head off and it was the cutest thing ever. She relayed one joke to me, or at least the jist of it, and said, "And I got it, Mom. I really did get it." :) She's been asking Rob to tell her more jokes ever since.

She's reading like a madwoman these days. It's awesome to send her off to reading time before bed and have her come and report what she read. She'll tell us her favorite parts. Rob suggested she take a pencil with her so she could mark any words she didn't know or couldn't sound out herself. So she'll come the next day and ask about a word or two. It's a fun stage to be in.

She's also spelling creatively. I wrote down some examples, because they were cute:

She loves doing chalk drawings on the front porch. On some morning, I walked out the door and looked over at what she'd drawn and this was written: "I hope you like my pikshrs. I like my pikshrs. Do you? Miciah"
For those of you who can't sound out phonetically, pikshrs is pictures.

She wrote herself this note to herself apparently to remind herself that she was going to the Children's Museum for a field trip. (I helped her with spelling part of children's and museum.):
"I am going to the childrin's museum today. from Miciah to Miciah." (then in a box:) "I rile am going to it."
Rile is really.

When I was cleaning the toy room downstairs I found these paper "pillows". They were pieces of paper folded over and stapled on the edges, with paper inside them to make them like pillows. They had things drawn on them from a stencil and then things written beside it. Like so:

A picture of a cat. "This livs in Egipt."

A picture of an owl. "I like ols becus thay go hoot hoot."

A picture of a butterfly. "This livs in r stat. I like butrflis."
(This one I wondered about for a while. It says This lives in our state.

And lastly, she drew a picture of a character from Avatar. Honestly, I don't know how to spell his name. Haru, maybe? Anyways, she drew the picture that I've attached to this e-mail (if you know the show, you'll recognize the character), and then on the back she wrote in a big heart:
"I love you To Hroow From Ktra."
Ktra is Katara, another character from the show.

Miciah does more artwork than I can keep on top of or reasonably save. It's fun to have her be doing so much.

Oh, I thought this was cute. She always does a calendar at school. For March, they put on the calendar a list of things to look for as signs of Spring. She misplaced the calendar for a while, and I found it when I was cleaning yesterday. Miciah called from M's because she was feeling a little homesick. Her voice sounded so pathetic as she told me she missed me. I knew she was having a good time, of course, so I wasn't too concerned. To try to get her mind off the topic, and to try to cheer her up, I told her I'd found her March calendar. She replied in the same pathetic I miss you voice, "Mom?" And I thought she hadn't even heard what I'd said. "Mom? Can you put a check mark next to "buds on trees" and "flowers"? Because I've seen those." :)

Now I am off to pick up Miciah and bring her home!! Yea!

Enjoy the pictures. There'll be a series of them.


Teancom in Miciah's fuzzy winter hat. Since Elijah got his hat, Teancom's been wearing hats non-stop, too. Funny.


Here's Elijah blowing out the candles on his cake:

We buzzed the boys heads. They look pretty cute. Rob now calls Teancom his bald little monkey.

After we buzzed the boys' heads, Elijah chased Teancom around saying, "He looks funny! He looks funny!" We reminded Elijah that he had the same haircut. But Elijah said he didn't. Elijah had an Aang haircut, and Teancom looked like Conner (their cousin who does indeed have the same haircut). After a day or two, though, Elijah decided that Elijah looked like Aang and Teancom was "Aang baby." :)

The other day Elijah played hard with his best friend, Andrew. We came home and I had to make dinner. Elijah was sitting on the kitchen floor being whiny, but I wasn't really paying attention. Suddenly, I realized he wasn't being whiny any more. I looked down and there was Elijah, fast asleep, in his coat, face down, on the kitchen floor. I got out the camera and not only took pictures, but took a video, too, because the situation was so funny to me that I was in full dinner prep, stepping around a sleeping little boy.

Tamra and family

Oh, if anyone needs any baby guppies, we now have 9 of them. Rob says we need a big fish to eat all the babies. :) If only the babies weren't so dang cute!

Time for Another Update

Jump Rope for Heart



First off, as another thank you to those who donated, Miciah's Kindergarten class got an icecream sundae party for being the highest money raising class for Jump Rope for Heart. I happened to be in there that day as a parent helper, and the kids were SO EXCITED. One of the kids said, "This is the best day of my life!" And it only seemed fitting that I was there that day, since the teacher told me that the class raised something like $260. Which means Miciah raised all but $10 or $20 of that amount. So, Hurray for Miciah!

And if you're wondering, like I was, why an ice cream party was the reward for a healthy thing like jump roping, the teacher said that the original prize was a Subway party. But they probably didn't anticipate a Kindergarten class winning. The teacher approached the administration and said, "These kids don't care about sandwiches. How about an ice cream party instead?" So they changed it and man, it was fun to watch how excited they all were.



Elijah Turns 4!


Last Sunday was Elijah's 4th birthday! He was very excited for his "birthday party". Not a party at all, just 3 families: R & C, the B's (A's his best bud), and the S's (A is his other good friend). A few weeks ago, Elijah was looking through a birthday catalog that we get from time to time. He opened to the Spider-Man page with the cake, decorations, toys, etc. and said, "Mom, this is your recipe." It was cute. He was especially particular about having the cake. So I figured I'm make him a lame Spider-Man cake with a drawn on web and I'd put one of his Spider-Man dolls on top. But starting a few days before his birthday, he started talking about all the Spider-Man stuff he would have for his birthday. The cake, the pictures, and lots and lots of Spider-Man toys. We weren't even getting him a Spider-Man gift. We got him more Thomas train track.

I went to the store on Saturday and decided to check out the Spider-Man toys, too, since he was so set on them. I found a fun Spider-Man cell phone. He loves phones. He loves Spider-Man. So I got it for him. I hasn't let it out of his sight since, and he's even taken it to bed with him. Cute. And then last minute on Sunday I printed some Spider-Man pictures off the internet for his card and some pictures for the wall. He was thrilled with it all. I was anticipating him being pretty upset that there wasn't enough Spider-Man stuff, but he seemed to think it was perfect. Yea for that!

Here are some images: of the cake

(the dolls on top are red Spider-Man and black Spider-Man fighting with each other (Elijah refers to them as red and black Spider-Man. Red is always good. Black is always bad. He's never seen the 3rd movie, but he knows that the black one is bad. And he always has to be red Spider-Man when he's playing. I get to be the black one) and Elijah opening gifts.

Teancom Stories

Elijah had a few nights in a row where he was waking up every night and complaining about his ear. We took him in to the doctor and she said he has a mild ear infection. We figured it couldn't be too bad because he's been acting okay during the day. He'll just wake up in the middle of the night complaining about his ear. He's on antibiotics now. On one of the nights he was up, both boys kept each other awake for a full 3+ hours. Nice. That night was funny, though, because I brought Teancom in to bed with us to try to get him to go to sleep. It ultimately didn't work, but I gave him some kisses on his face and he took his fingers out of his mouth and gave me a kiss back. If you haven't seen Teancom give kisses, it's dang cute. And they're not the open mouthed gross baby kisses. He puckers up and plants them gently. So cute. So I said, "Okay, you're cute." He said, "Cute," back to me. And I told him that it wasn't fair for him to be charming at 3 in the morning. That kid totally has us wrapped around his finger and he knows it.

I have decided that I am one of those parents I vowed never to be. I am totally and completely enamored with Teancom. When I talk to people, I talk about how cute he is and how blah blah blah blah he is. I thought that being in love like this should be a choice. Nope. He is addictingly cute and cuddly and I'm hooked. So, sorry about gushing over him. It's just so easy to do!! So now I am one of those annoying gushing parents and I roll my eyes at myself even while I gush.

A story about Teancom. The other day he got out our sifter and was, for some reason, licking it. Rob looked down at him and said, "Teancom, that's pretty gross. How about you put that back?" So he immediately walked back to the cabinet, calmly put it back and went to find something else to play with. Isn't that amazing? I remember all the fighting and struggling and battle of wills I have had with my other 2 children. Teancom is just weird.

At Elijah's party, Teancom found a piece of clear plastic to play with. I didn't think much of it until Dustin Brown, sitting on our couch, starts laughing hysterically. We all stopped talking and Teancom is over there, smashing his face into the plastic to make Dustin laugh. So we got out the camera. You can see what Teancom's doing better in the close-up, but I like the other picture better because you can see Dustin in a full laugh, and that's what made the situation the most funny.

... I wrote everything up till this line last week and I can't get into the groove with everything else I was going to say, so I'm going to cut this off, send some pictures, and try again with another e-mail.

Tamra

Pictures of the Snow

Here's 2 pictures of the snow. Obviously the first was taken as the snow was at its peak. About 2:30 on Saturday. I wanted to take a comparison shot.

The one with less snow is from about 2:30 on Monday. The snow is almost all gone now.

Tamra

The Weather and Stuff

The view from our front porch Saturday morning.

But we'll start at a few weeks back.

Jump Rope for Heart

Miciah did Jump Rope for Heart and loved it. She ended up raising a little over $250, which I thought was fairly impressive. Thank you to everyone who donated. It was a good experience for her.

Teancom

Teancom is now getting into things and trying to figure out how things work. Not in a destructive way, in a pleasant, isn't that cute, kind of way. For example, he found our stash of random CD-ROMs sitting on the desk. He found a CD-ROM in the pile that wasn't in a case and took it over to the DVD player. He knows how to open it (I wasn't aware of that), and he knows that that's how you make DVDs work. So he spent, I dunno, 10 minutes trying to put that CD-ROM in the player. He'd put it in, but it wouldn't be in the well right. So when he'd shut it, it would push the CD-ROM out. He'd quickly open the DVD player and try it again. It was cute and I couldn't even be mad about the CD-ROM. One, I'd left it out, and two, it wasn't one we cared a ton about. So I let him figure out his world. (I'm sure the more destructive side of Teancom is coming, so I'm giving myself the "just you wait" lecture so I can tell myself "I told you so" in a year. Just in case any of you felt like giving me the lecture, too bad, I beat you to it. :) )

Teancom has also figured out that the more vocal he is, the more things he can get and do. He has figured out how to say words for almost everything in his life, and it is wonderful. He actually is pretty easy to understand, which surprises me, since he didn't talk for so long and we were a little worried about that. He loves now to ask for Baby Einstein and he'll watch them over and over if I let him, which I don't unless he's sick because they make me sick. Teancom is also exceptionally good for his age at following directions. He's better at following directions than Elijah is (not that that is much of a feat because Elijah refuses to follow directions). What amazes me about this isn't that he knows what I'm saying. It's that he's patient enough to do it. He'll really want to watch a movie, for instance. He'll hand it to me and I'll say, "Go take it to Miciah downstairs and ask her to turn it on for you down there." He'll take the movie, go all the way downstairs (which requires, mind you, crawling down the stairs with the movie in hand), and ask her to turn the movie on. And Miciah's really good, she knows what he's asking, and she'll turn it on for him. I'm happy Teancom is such an easy kid, and I'm MORE than happy to let Miciah be his mom, too.

Of course that backfires when Miciah tries to be too much his mom. Fine lines.

Teancom was sick over the weekend. He's better today, thankfully. It's good to have my happy little boy back. And it's nice: last night I slept all night and didn't realize that was odd until I woke up at 8 am and was wondering what was wrong. :)

Elijah

Elijah is on drugs. He's bouncing off the walls and I can't wait until it's consistently warm outside and I can send him out there for hours. He's bugging Miciah a lot and I have to send him to bed early some nights because he can't calm down (B will say, "Hey, I didn't rile him up!" I know. I just say, "Yeah, you don't have to. He's just been like that."). Seriously, after 7 pm he's crazy. Not that he's sedate other times. He's a normal boy. But at night, sheesh. Maybe I'll just move his bedtime way earlier.

Avatar

My Mom decided to buy the first 2 Avatar seasons for us. Awesome! I told Elijah that Grandma bought us Avatar and he went out right then to check the mail. I told him it wouldn't come for a few days. Not that he understands time. The next morning, Rob and I had taken a shower and we're getting dressed and heard the door open. We were trying to figure out who was at our house at 8 am. Elijah was in the living room, but he doesn't go outside usually. So Rob went out there and asked if Elijah had gone outside. No, he said. Then he came up to me and asked me to put on his shoes so he could check the mail. I told him the mail hadn't come yet but he was unconvinced. He checked the mail that morning as well as the morning after. Then, Saturday night the kids were in the bathroom for too long (always a bad sign). Elijah came out with a blue arrow on his forehead. Rob took it off for church, but we told him if he was good he could have one after church was over. So on it went again Sunday afternoon. It's pretty funny. Elijah then put on his Spider-Man pajamas and said, "Mom, can these be Aang pajamas?" Sure. So he's Aang with his blue arrow. He also informed us he wanted to shave his head and draw the arrow all the way down his head. I told him I'd have to think about that one.

How proud we are.

After the arrow was drawn and Elijah was officially then Aang, he tripped and bonked his head. Miciah said, "Accidents happen even if you're the Avatar." So wise.

The movies came yesterday and Elijah screamed to the mailman, "That's my Aang package!!"

Miciah

Miciah is still doing crafts faster than I can catalog them. The other day she made a "tent" out of a piece of cardboard and paper. She had the tent flaps and everything. It was pretty cool. Did I take a picture? No. Probably should have. I did take a picture, though, of the pet rock we made as a family. Miciah wanted to make a beetle. You'll notice from the pictures that the beetle has a tail. Why a tail? Who knows. She wanted it to have a tail. The legs are made out of straws, as you'll see, which wasn't a very stable design. But oh well, it was cute. Miciah loved the shiny blue paint (she painted it). The rock is now on display at her school along with all the other pet rocks. I guess the entire Kindergarten made them.

Rob

Rob is still plugging away at his dissertation. It's going well enough, I guess, since he doesn't come home stressed out of his mind. I was expecting stress levels through the roof right now, but it hasn't been bad. I think the switch over to being in the Bishopric has helped ease some of it, since it's a change that he can focus some of his energy on. Plus, he's decided not to push it and try to actually graduate in time to walk in June. The June 13th graduation would have meant he'd have to be done with all his stuff by mid-May or so. This way, he gets an extra month, and that's helped him relax a little.

Health and Fitness Challenge

Rob and I both have been doing a health and fitness challenge that J put together. It's been AWESOME!! We're just under 3 weeks away from being done with it (it started at the beginning of January). We've been exercising every day (Rob has done a full hour for 6 days a week for 9 weeks now--I sometimes wimp out at half an hour or 45 minutes) and we've made a huge effort to eat better. I have successfully killed my sugar addiction, and that feels really nice. Plus, me being ACTIVELY supportive of Rob in his weight loss efforts has gone a long way for both of us. I, of course, am not trying to lose weight, so I've always had crap around to eat which isn't good for either of us. We've both really liked cutting out most all of the crap. We won't be psycho about it, and I still like sugar, but not being ruled by sugar is a good thing. Rob has lost almost 20 lbs. in the last 2 months, and he's looking and feeling great. He feels better about his body than he has in years and it really shows in his confidence level. I'm proud of him and I think he's looking hot! As for me, like I said, I haven't lost weight (which is good), but I can now see muscles in my body. It's nice to think I look "right". I've always been pretty athletic, so seeing a scrawny body without muscle definition is foreign to me. I feel better in my mood, I'm happier, and I'm healthier. Yea for all of those things!!!

So all of you should join us again in August when we do the challenge again for 3 months. We're looking forward to a break, but it'll be good to do the challenge again because I'm sure we'll be slackers again by then.

And now for the Weather Report.

Last week started with almost 70 degree weather! It was awesome. We went on a hike with our kids. It was muddy and a little rainy, but it was beautiful. And it was fun to get out of the house. The kids spent that lunch outside on the deck, and spent quite a few hours playing outside. Yea for almost spring!!!!!

So, check out Miciah and Elijah in these pictures. I took out the camera to capture them doing their first lunch on the deck of the season. And while I was taking pictures they decided to smell each other's feet. Weird, but kinda cute.

Then, it was raining for days. We had probably an inch of standing water in our yard on Wednesday. Mom in Toledo was talking about all the snow they were getting and I told her that here it wasn't even below 50 degrees, probably. On Thursday we were hearing about a snow storm coming in and I thought, "Yeah, right." We watched the news on Thurs. night to learn about it. They were talking about this huge storm coming in and they weren't predicting snow, they were telling us snow was coming. No prediction involved. The only question was how MUCH snow.

On Friday morning Miciah's school called to say school was letting out 2 hours early, which meant Miciah didn't even go to school. It hadn't even started snowing yet when they made that decision. But the whole CITY made that call. Schools, universities, businesses, everything shut down by 2 pm or earlier. It started snowing at 8 am. By noon we had a few inches. It was this powdery lovely snow, not the heavy wet stuff we normally get. It was a weird storm. And it didn't stop. We got a few hours of a break here and there, but it didn't stop snowing until Saturday at around 3:30 pm. We even had "blizzard conditions" for a few hours, but it was all while we were sleeping Friday night. They were talking about snow thunderstorms. How cool is that?

Anyways, I woke up Sat. morning and was pretty shocked by how much snow we had. We had a level 3 snow emergency. Our road was covered with snow. By noon they were reporting 10 inches of snow and another few inches fell by the time it stopped. A good foot of snow. Sweet! Rob spent an hour digging us out. He then went to the church to dig the church out for another hour. On Sunday Rob helped our elderly neighbor do his driveway (he said, "I couldn't in good conscience just watch him do it all by himself!") for 20 minutes (his son came to help, too). I was hoping they'd cancel church on Sunday, but no such luck. :) Only about 75 people showed up, though, so they only one hour of church. The bishop is from Buffalo, NY, and they have 3 or 4 snow storms this bad or worse every year there. He was thinking, "What's the big deal?" :) We were the only ward in our stake that held a meeting.

So the fun parts of the weather story.

1 - We were supposed to drive up on Friday night to see M's play (2 hours North). I'm sad we missed it, but we decided we didn't want to drive up in the middle of the storm. (Especially since we'd done that 2 weeks before and it wasn't any fun--it took us 3 hours to make the 2-hour trip.) We had a babysitter lined up down here for the boys so we could make that trip and they told us if we still wanted to go out, we could, and they would watch the kids overnight. But we didn't even want to do that. So we stayed home and enjoyed the night home. I was thinking we'd made the right call and then we woke up Sat. morning and I KNEW we'd made the right call. We wouldn't have been able to get our kids until Saturday night! Craziness! And if we'd been up at C's, we probably wouldn't have left until Sunday to go home. That would have been crazy!

We tried to go out again on Sat. night, but I bet you can guess whether that happened or not. Rob was also supposed to go out with the missionaries. Didn't happen, either. So we have a raincheck date night for this Saturday night and if it snows, I'm going to cry. :)

2- It was perfect snow for a snowman! A lot of the snow here has ice in it or on it or just isn't right for a snowman. But this time it was great. So Rob stayed home a little later Monday morning to make a snowman with Miciah. I took lots of pictures. It was pretty cute. Rob is a good man and a good daddy.


Hope you're all doing well. We love you all!

Tamra and the Gang

More pictures are coming.

P.S. I have figured it out! I figured out why Elijah needs to pray for the Green Goblin at every prayer. One day it just came to me. Rob said, "Elijah, why do you always pray for the Green Goblin and not for Spider-Man?" I said, "Well, why would he pray for Spider-Man? He IS Spider-Man." And that's when it came to me. Who pretends to be the Green Goblin? Rob does. This whole time he'd been saying he was grateful to play the Green Goblin with daddy (or that he's grateful for daddy who is the Green Goblin).

Makes it a little easier to say we're grateful for the Green Goblin.