The Post in Which I Shamlessly Brag on My Oldest Child

My friend Holly and I were discussing the other day how when babies are little, people brag and brag on them.  Even on Facebook we flash pictures of their cuteness and oh and ah over their achievements and people comment on it.  As they get older it seems to become a faux paux to brag on our kiddos.  It suddenly becomes awkward.  Few people comment when you brag on them, you might get a few likes, and that is it.  Well I don't follow trends.  I'm proud of them and I am happy to share their accomplishments and their silliness.

(Excuse the crazy look on my face.  I chose the one that was cutest of my boy.)

A lot of things have been running through my mind about Mr. M and I need to get them recorded before they slip my mind. They change so much and so quickly.

1. He loves to use the word "literally."  He uses it to emphasize almost everything he says.  It cracks us up.  It used to be, "for reals."  Literally is an improvement.

2. He has the hardest time sitting to eat.  He hops from chair to chair.  We are constantly reminding him to sit.  He also has to be reminded of manners.  He thinks it's fun to shovel food into his mouth.  I went to eat at school with him one time and the little girl next to me did say his manners are fine, so I guess he does ok at school.  She also told me, "He'll eat almost anything on his plate.  He eats really well."  She cracked me up and that lunch date might be worth an entire post.

3.  He is wildly creative. He loves to draw and write.  He makes up board games.  He also makes games for his friends at school to play during recess.

4.  He is kind-hearted and gets along really well with everyone.  His best friends in Texas were girls so he plays really well with girls.  It's nice!  He does love his guy buddies though, and always wants to play with them.  Most of them are busy with their sports so we have a hard time getting them together.

5. He is not afraid to show affection.  I know one day he will probably be embarrassed to love on me in public.  I will miss it.  It's so sweet.  His dad is the same way so maybe he follows his example.

6. He is extremely smart.  He started the accelerated reading program this year.  I'm loving it.  I've never been able to tell what reading level he is on.  I could pull out all my old stuff and test him, but then I'd have to dig through thousands of papers in storage to find it.  The books in the AR program tell you what grade level the books are written in and then the child tests on them.  We still have not reached his max.  I have no idea what level he is on.  The last book I chose for him was a 4th grade, 7th month book (he is 2nd grade, 3rd month chronologically).  He read the book in 2 days and passed the test.  Right now he is reading a book that is 5th grade, 9th month.  He says it's easy reading but he hasn't tested on it yet.  I'm curious to see how he does.  It's a like a little experiment.  I am interested to see how high he can go.

7.  If I had to say he struggled in one area, it would be math.  This cracks my dad up when I tell him this because M's grade is still an A.  It's 96-98% instead of 100%. He is good at math but has little faith in himself.  He gets in a rush and makes silly mistakes.  He also wants so badly to do well, he tries to follow the example his teacher gives him to the T.  I'll be showing him why a word problem is subtraction and not addition and he just doesn't believe me.  Usually Dad ends up helping with math because I get frustrated. Mr. M knows dad is amazingly smart at math (and everything else) so he's more willing to believe him. I taught lower-level high school math....just to add to the silliness of it all.

8.  His writing amazes me.  He is so creative.  His teacher tells me she will teach a concept in class and he will immediately work it into his writing.  Our house is full of books all of our kids have written.

9.  I don't let our kids play on the computer much.  I prefer games and things that do not require me to help.  The computer stresses me out because they constantly seem to need help or they mess something up.  M had a school assignment the other day that I allowed him to type up.  I haven't seen him that excited over something in a long time.  He was so proud of his work and could hardly wait to get to school the next day to show his teacher.  He kept giving me loves and thanking me for letting him type.  I opened a can of worms.  Now he does some typing every day, which is actually working out to my benefit (see below).

9.  He is writing a biography about Mr. D.  It's the cutest thing. I think I'll start posting what he writes on here!  He'd love that.  I leave all his little typing errors so he can see how much progress he makes over the years.  I love that he is doing this.  D's life through the eyes of his big brother.

10.  He is just a good kid.  This stage with him is very fun. We get compliments from his church teachers on how well-behaved and on how smart he is.  They love that he participates in the lessons.  He's so lucky he got his dad's retention skills.  If it goes in one ear, it stays in his brain.  Lucky kid!  Although I have to add that this only applies to academics.  Give him a direction to put his sunglasses away and you will find them in the refrigerator.  "Literally" his sunglasses are in our refrigerator as I type.   He is our absent-minded professor. 

#Love4Mia

It's been one year since sweet Mia went to Heaven.  It's been one hard year.  My sorrow for someone else's little girl has been overwhelming at times.  I cannot even come close to fathoming how hard it is for her family.  I don't want to focus on the heartache though.  I want to focus on what a beautiful day October 8, 2013 was.

 

Mia's mommy asked us to do service for others in the name of Mia.  It was incredible to watch the love be spread all across the world.  Amazing!

 

Here in my little corner of the world, I had a wonderful day.  Although at times overcome with sadness, I had so many opportunities provided.  I don't want to go into details of all of them, but little things popped up all day, from someone being stranded and me being in the right place at the right time to help her, to us planning to honor some people we love very much.

 

I brag on the people at The Little Gym often.  I really just love them.  My kids love them.  I wanted to honor them.  They do so much for the kids in this community...so, so much.  We made them some treats and the M wrote them a sweet letter.

 

Mr. M really wanted to make sure Mia's brother Jensen felt some love from him. He can't wait to see him next summer.   

 

Every day for months I have also tried to do something special for my children in the name of Mia.  I read her mom's post on her heartache and I hear how much she wants to love on that girl of hers. I make sure I take time every day to stop doing what I'm doing, especially when I don't want to, to do something for my babies. 

 

She may not have been here long but Mia will forever be an influence on this family.  I can't wait to see her family reunited someday in Heaven.  That will be a beautiful sight.

Conference Weekend

Our church has a conference every six months held in SLC.  They broadcast it to the world so we are able to watch our leaders right here in our own homes.  We look forward to this weekend.  We listen to the Prophet, Apostles, and other leaders for 8-10 hours between Saturday morning and Sunday.  Our kids actually sit and listen to much of it and have fun with it.  We provide activities and treats so that helps.

 

I used the weekend to also bake some bread.  I had taken a break from homemade bread because I just couldn't get it down.  It came out like a block of wood.  Some great people told me to use less flour and it worked!  The bread was fantastic.  Now the only problem is I eat too much of it.  I don't love store bought bread and find it easy to skip it most of the time.  However, homemade bread is fantastic.  At least it's whole wheat, right?

This was just cute:

We did some crafts in between sessions too.  They loved their pumpkins.  So far they are the only decorations we've put out. 

These little people are so amazing.  Really they are good kids.  I feel so lucky and so blessed.  They are just awesome.

Car Drama and Some Catchin' Up

Yesterday my car broke down.  We think the alternator went out.  I am at home today with no car so I figure I'll get caught up on this blog before our little person enters the world. 

 

We had plans to go to the pumpkin patch yesterday for FHE (family night).  I called Cabe several times to see if he could pick up Mr. M from gymnastics to make the evening go a little smoother.  I could not reach him.  His phone never registered that I called, which is weird.  So I rushed back to the gym to get my boy.  On the way there the lights in the car started flashing.  Whenever I hit the brakes it seemed like everything but the engine quit working.  I knew we were in trouble but hoped I'd at least make it home.  Nope. I had to turn it off to go in and get him and when I came out it wouldn't start.

 

Cabe came to the rescue, we jumped it, and headed home.  I almost made it.  There is this extremely busy three-way-stop by our house.  It is a dangerous intersection because no one seems to understand how a three-way-stop is supposed to work.  Where did my car decided to shut down completely?  Yup, right as I was making a right hand turn at that intersection.  I sat there until Cabe was right behind me then hopped out to see he wanted me to do. 

 

Cabe tried to push the car (it's an SUV) off the road and out of the way while I steered it, but it was uphill. One person helping would have been enough.  No one stopped. Instead he had to pull his truck right out into the intersection and climb under the vehicles to hook up the tow rope.  We hauled it home. 

 

At the house our closest neighbors all came out and helped us push it into the driveway.  Then one of them provided a battery charger and phone numbers to his favorite mechanic.  Yay for awesome neighbors!

 

I was so surprised no one stopped.  I don't think that has ever happened to me before.  People always stop.  Especially when they see a hugely pregnant person waddling around trying to help push a car and get tow ropes attached (I wasn't much help).

 

In all of this, there were some tender mercies.  Miss L was very upset we were missing the pumpkin patch again (had to miss it over the weekend too).  I sat them down and was explaining to them that sometimes things that seem bad are actually good.  They prevent something worse from happening.  Mr. M completely understood what I was saying, Miss L still thinks I'm nuts.  Here's a few things I think were tender mercies from the Lord:

 

Yesterday morning The Little Gym asked me if Lil' D could come a day early for his gymnastics class.  Which works out fantastically since we no longer have a car.  Save me the stress of scheduling make-ups.

 

As I mentioned, I tried to call Cabe all day to see if he could pick up M from gymnastics to make the evening less crazy.  His phone didn't even register my calls until it was too late.  That never happens.  His office is fairly close to our house and we get great service between there and home.  If he had picked him up, we would have headed to the pumpkin patch in my car and had it die even further from home and with no access to our truck.  Then we would have had to call someone and it would have taken longer and been even more stressful.  Or maybe it would have died somewhere even more dangerous.  Who knows?  All I know is we made it safely home and now we just have to get it repaired.  No biggie.

 

I'm telling you, tender mercies.

 

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Now onto lighter things.

 

I can't remember why I took the pic below.  I know there was a story behind it but the story is forgotten. It does remind me of another thing I'd like to record though.

 

Mr. M still has to see the allergist every other week.  School was extended fifteen minutes this year so the only day we can make it to the doctor's office before they close is Wednesday.  This seems to be true for most of their patients because the place is packed.  The entire process, from leaving home to getting home, takes two hours.  We are just thankful we don't have to go every single week anymore.

 

There are so many kids on the waiting playground that it's not much fun for kidlets and it's still hot so I bring games for the kids to play.  We usually end up with anywhere from five to fifteen kids playing games with us.  It's chaotic but we have fun anyway.  Headbandz is a favorite of everyone.  Lil' D looks at his card before he puts it on but pretends not to know what it is until we've made several guesses.

One morning when Dad went out to feed the animals a frog (or toad?) hopped in.  We had a little chasing party to start our day. 

 

I bought some curl formers for pretty cheap online.  I was so excited to use them on Lib.  Once I got the application down, her hair looked pretty good.

She ran around the house singing, "I look soooo pretty!  I look soooo pretty!" 

She said as soon as she got to school, her friend Jamariana, ran her hands through it until the curls were gone.  She was so sad because sleeping in those things was not comfortable and she didn't even get to show her teacher.  She still won't speak at school, so she couldn't tell her buddy to stop.  Not that she would have anyway.  She lets her classmates get away with almost anything.  She seems happy to do it, but a part of me worries she is getting walked on a bit.

 

Not even sure how to end this random post.  I never am on these combined ones.

State Capitol

The kidlets and the hubs had the day off last Friday.  We've badly wanted to get to the LDS Temple in Baton Rouge and we've needed some time together with me headache free.

We were very excited to spend a night in Baton Rouge, see some sites, be replenished at the temple, and see some friends.  I also had Relief Society meeting Saturday night so it worked out perfectly.

 

Anyway, we went to see the State Capitol first.  Mr. M had noticed something about the Capitol on the promethean board at school and was very interested in the whole thing.

They look so itty bitty in comparison: 

Louisiana is well-known for having corrupt government officials.  I don't know much about this guy, but I hear he had his issues.  Obviously someone else thought so too.

 The young looking guy in the glasses is the guy who shot him.

Doesn't this top paragraph sound familiar?  Seems I've heard this same type of thing recently. 

 I had a hard time understanding the projectory (sp?), but here's a bullet whole in the column none-the-less.

At the top of the building they had a look-out.  It was beautiful to see the city from up this high.  I had to take pics all the way around. 

 

This menu cracked me up.  It's so Louisianan.  Fried fish. Carbs, carbs, and more carbs.  I bet it tastes nummy though. 

The first floor of the building is majestic.  So pretty. 

I love architecture like this. 

The kids were surprisingly interested in the whole House of Reps and the Senate.  We took them into both sections and talked about what happens there.

I wanted a picture of the desks and found one with a fleur de lis.  We'll always remember what state this State Capitol was in. 

Miss L was curious as to whether this is where the Ten Commandments were written.  In one of our games they are called, "The Laws."

 

Beautiful artwork on the door: 

The House of the Senate room: 

Beautiful columns. 

So we left this beautiful space and hopped into the elevator.  This was our elevator:

Nothing like duct tape and plywood.  I know they are re-modeling but I'm pretty sure those elevators have been plywood for some time. 

It was a fun and educational day!  We enjoyed it so much.

 

Later we went to the Art and Science Museum and the planetarium.  The kids explore section was pretty fun, maybe not worth the arm and leg it cost to get in, but we did have fun.  Mr. M loved the planetarium show but Miss L sobbed through the entire thing, I have no idea what was wrong, she still hasn't told us.  Mr. D fell sound asleep.  Dad was annoyed because they went political with the video.  I was indifferent.  At least one kid enjoyed it!

 

We also went swimming.  That was a huge hit as usual.  Mr. D LOVES swimming...he gets that from me.  He is so crazy and fun to swim with.  He smiles and jumps and is care-free.  It can be nerve-wracking at times but finally I have a kid who is not scared of the water.  And he's the only one I didn't start swimming lessons with when he was a baby....hhhmmmm...maybe that is where I made a mistake.

The Simple Things in Life

Who knew a lamp could make someone so happy.

She loves that thing!