First stitches

"I'm ALWAYS careful mom!"
Joren's famous last words before he cut himself bad enough to need his first stitches.  Just two, but TRAUMATIC for a 3 year old.  Kind of cool that his dad is a total rock star and can give him stitches at home.
Taking the stitches out was almost as traumatic.  I hate to hold my kids down for things, but it pretty much came to that and in the end Joren said, "you were right mom, it didn't hurt at all."  Since Joren is ALWAYS right, that admission was a pretty big deal.  (notice his "custom" hair cut bangs.) 

Teig 14 months

Teig is into everything!  If he is not drinking with a big gulp straw out of the toilet he is climbing in the cabinet behind the trash can or making a break out the front door and into the street.  He puts everything in his mouth and is a total scavenger.  He is always looking for something to eat.  I saw his make a funny face one day and then watched him spit out a living scarab beetle.  I'm on vigilant alert at all times. He makes the sound of a fish and cow and horse and duck and he growls.  He can do the baby sign for drink, although he puts his finger up his nose instead of his thumb at his mouth to indicate drink.  It cracks me up!  He does the sign for diaper change and more and can tell us what he wants pretty well pretty much all the time.  He is great at exploring.  He loves to be outside and loves to get dirty.  He is not in the least bit intimidated by Tor.  He plays by him all the time even though Tor would smother him if he sat on him.  His favorite things are balls, hands down.  He always has a stick or a ball in his hand.  He initiates games of catch with everyone willing.  He giggles when people throw and catch successfully.  His favorite is still baseball.  On Friday we ate a potluck dinner at the church with friends and Teig played with all the other kids and balls in the gym.  Today at church Teig went straight to the doors of the gym and pried his little fingers in the doors until I opened it for him.  He happily entered the big dark gym in search of a ball and was fine with me leaving him there as long as he had his ball.  Teig loves to eat.  His favorite foods are grapes and strawberries.  He is independent/ not a snuggler, very smart, loves to blow kisses and give me kisses on the cheek when I ask and he sings when I lay him down at night to tell me he wants me to sing him a song.  He loves his song I sing to him ("Teig, Teig, Teig, Teigalicious..") which ends in a kiss.  He sings "Da Da DA Da Da ..(kiss!)"  It's so cute!

artist in the cellar

It was 9:00 and the kids were asleep so I let the artist out of the cellar for a few minutes.  She came up with two brilliant sketches and started looking for some scrap.  Then baby 1 woke up and then baby 2 came out of his room and snuck downstairs and out the front door to watch a spider eat a bug in his web and then baby one started screaming like a howler monkey and so mama shoved the artist back in the cellar and slammed the door pinching her fingers in the process.  It hurt really bad and the mom was sad because the artist is not allowed to come out.  She knows better.  So she put on a stronger lock and then started a movie to distract herself, then went to bed.  The end.

Migration day

Today I decided to pull Joren out of preschool.  I was a bit hesitant to put him in in the first place considering his behavior issues.  After the first few weeks it became apparent that his bad behaviors at home were definitely following him into the classroom and they were becoming a major disruption.  I guess I was hoping he would surprise me.  I went to bed thinking I was taking him to preschool this morning and when I woke up I decided we were done.  I prayed the other day that the Lord would help me see how to stop pushing my kids, rushing them and snapping at them so much.  I want to slow down and enjoy this time with my kids and this morning it hit me that preschool was too much.  I have loved my days with him at home.  I thought preschool would be so good for him and that being with the other kids would help his social skills, but I think he is just not ready and I realized that the one on one time I have the time to give him now is more important than anything else.  Yesterday we hit bad behaviors hard.  I always show my disapproval one way or the other, but yesterday I blotted out all other things (except Teig of course) and we spent the day in time out and in discussion and love.  Today we only had a few time outs and much improved behavior.  I feel a great weight lifted off of me too.  I feel like I was forcing us into a hard schedule when we can really stay home all winter and enjoy the year.  What a great time it is going to be.  Joren is so different when Eirik is not around and I feel like I am finally getting a chance to get to know him.  He still loves to fill bags with water. He also loves to paint rocks.  He picks up rocks everywhere we go so he can paint them.  He uses the hot melt glue gun to glue beads and googly eyes on them.  He also has the best eyes in the world for finding bugs and creatures.  He is so observant.  He can spot them anywhere and he loves to catch them.  He found a toad the other day and we played with it for hours. I asked him to set him loose in the pond.  Of course he did not want to and wanted to keep him in the terrarium.  I let him keep him but after a few days I told him the toad needed to be set loose so he could get some food and live.  A little while later Joren said, "mom, don't look in that drawer."   Guess what I found in that drawer!  He had put his toad in a ziplock bag and back in the ziplock bag box back in the drawer for safe keeping!  Ahh...  Well, he assured me after that that the toad had been let loose in the pond.  Today the boys found a different toad in the backyard.  Joren ran in the house in great excitement and told Eirik to wait outside.  Then he dove under our ottoman in the living room and extracted his, somehow still living toad from under a cup he had placed upside down there.  That means that for at least a day and a half that toad lived in my living room under a cup and I did not notice!  Imagine my surprise if I had found him!  They were thrilled to have two toads to play with and compare.  Joren even let his toad loose in the pond and somehow recaptured it a bit later.  I was most impressed that Eirik actually held the toad today.  He usually instructs Joren when and where and what to do with all the living creatures they find together; to which Joren always willingly obliges.  What a cute team.
After lunch I made big ice cream sundaes for the two of us and we went out and ate them on the lawn.  We noticed a bunch of birds of prey circling above our house.  As we watched them, we discovered that more and more were joining them.  We counted 50 hawks, or whatever they were, joining up and then flying very high and straight west.  As we watched, one group after another, all huge, congregated and flew west.  I counted over 150 birds flying away.  Why west? I don't know, but it was magnificent and we daydreamed about flying that high and layed happily in the sun smelling the grass and enjoying the last bit of summer.  I taught him to nibble on the white ends of grass and he showed me how he can split grass and make it curl.  He snuggled in my lap and we played thumb war in the sun over and over again.    I took Joren on a bike ride to the river today where he found a rusty old fish hook and tried to fish.  We watched tiny fish being eaten by 3" fish and we had a great time talking to each other.  We went home and got Teig, Eirik came home.  We made cookies and played outside.  Eirik was in great spirits.  Everyone was feeling so good that after dinner we went to the river again. The weather was perfect.  We got to see people turning on their Halloween decorations and smell the chill in the air and see the changing colors.  Eirik ran the whole way there.  He was so happy and enthusiastic.  They had a great time throwing rocks at the river.  Teig even had to get his feet in the water.  We loved watching the sun go down over the river and then riding back in the dark. (Eirik ran the whole way!)  We howled like coyotes and pretended they were chasing us.  Everyone had fun.  After tucking everyone in bed I laid down by Joren.  We talked about the day.  We have this great book called Sharks vs. Trains.  One one page the shark and train are playing Extreme Squirrel Zombie Motorcross videogame.  Joren asked me in all sincerity if we could get a cord and plug in Extreme Squirrel Zombie Motorcross to our Wii so we could play it.  When I told him that that would not work, he was extremely disappointed.  I assured him that we would play lots of fun games tomorrow and he said, "this is the best part of my day, snuggling and hugging and kissing you."  He said, "is that a yittle bit weird vat I just kissed you.  I fink it is.  Kissing is kind a gross, but you wike it right?  I wove you mom."

Primary Program

This Sunday was our primary program.  I was excited since we had worked on parts for about a month and both boys knew them well.  On our way to church we had them recite them for us and Joren, in a usual defiant mood said, "Heavenly Father does NOT have a plan for me!"  At that point I knew we were in for quite a show.  Joren sat in the front row next to his teacher (apparently he needs one on one supervision since there were no other kids in his row.)  He recently gave himself a custom hair cut right up to the scalp right at the front so there was our silly little bright eyed red head in the front row by himself with this goofy haircut trying really hard to do just what he is supposed to do.  The first song was "scripture power".  Joren borrowed his teachers quad to hold up over his head when all the children were supposed to hold up their scriptures.  It was as big as his head and in the first verse he lifted with all his might and held this giant book in a zippered case over his head.  The weight of it threw him completely off balance and he toppled forward and suddenly disappeared out of sight behind the ledge of the stage.  I had to bite my lip to not laugh hysterically when his surprised  little head popped back up.  Joren did not know many of the words to the songs but he opened and closed his mouth to make it look like he did.  He swayed back with a straight legged right/ left waddle motion while mouthing the words in a way that made it impossible not to giggle watching him.  When he said his part, "Heavenwy Faver has a pwan fo me." the congregation made the noise you make when something is so totally endearing you can't help but gasp and it brought tears to my eyes.  In the third song, Joren knew only one word which was said throughout the chorus.  The word was truth and he screamed it out with all his little heart each time the word truth came up.  I just knew those primary teachers felt the same as I did and they just couldn't bear to squash that precious 3 year old ambition during the practices by telling him not to yell.   Oh it was precious. 
I don't mean to ignore Eirik.  He was a star too.  He gave his part like a practiced and professional politician.  He wore a grey vest and red tie with his white shirt and short haircut.  He said, "I can pray to my Heavenly Father.  He hears and answers my prayers.  I know He will help me if I need it."  He knew every word to every song and was a shining example to all around him.  I was so proud of him.
I love teaching my boys about the gospel.  This weekend we are going to put up a tent like King Benjamen's people as we watch conference.  I am going to let the kids get a piece of candy if they hear a speaker say a chosen word for each session and I am printing off coloring pages and things from sugardoodle.  I hope it will help us enjoy hearing the speakers.  I am looking forward to it.

Water Obsession

 

The whole water obsession is out of control. Joren is now fillng all of my ziplocks and sandwich bags with water and twist tying them closed. He has 2 shelves full of ice in bags now. I was hoping this ice thing would last maybe a week or so, but we are going on a month. We have a strick rule that water can't leave the kitchen or bathroom, but I found a bag in his room and one spilled in the car today. He is a total menace. And, did I mention he won't listen, won't obey, won't help and does his own thing no matter what I say? ARgh...
I have been really worried about sending him to preschool. On his first day he only climbed on top of the 5' dollhouse, and pushed a kid. He did not bite, pinch, throw sand, color with marker on things he's not supposed to or get naked and run around showing off his *&^%$. I am not over my anxiety about the certain possibility of those things happening. I have his teacher on warning and I told her that if needed I would be happy to pull him out of preschool. Oh, my Joren.

 

Our River Spot

I'll be honest, there aren't a lot of places where we are allowed to sit by the bank of our river on our island, but we did find this special place and we have been frequenting it.  On this last trip, Eirik was excited to bring his spear that he made from a piece of bamboo, masking tape and a sharp thorn.  He was sure it would be easy to spear a fish.  It was not, but wouldn't you know, Paul was able to fashion a fishing pole out of things he found at our river spot and catch a fish in about 1 minute.  Paul.. always the hero! 

Doing whatever it is that boys do.

Just when we thought we were too busy...

Guess what Paul started this morning?  Ok, give up, you'll never guess.  It's too outrageous!

Seminary!  He started teaching early morning seminary!  Yeah, we thought he was too busy for anything else too.  He was asked right before sacrament meeting Sunday.  During sacrament he prayed about it and he told me that the Lord told him that if he did not accept the calling He would take away all that he has even his life!  In other words, Paul said he really had no choice.  To be honest, the bishop told me that the previous seminary teacher said she couldn't do it 2 weeks before it was supposed to start.  He was very concerned, and I think he brought it up with me on the sly during our meeting to see what my response would be.  I told him I would tell Paul they really needed a teacher and get his reaction, but that I felt he was too busy to be able to handle a calling like that.  He did not wait to hear any reaction from me, although I don't think it mattered, however I think the spirit told me that day that he would get this call and it would be a blessing to us.  As he prepared for his first lesson last night, he said to me, "you want to go get your scriptures?"  He told me later that I sort of giggled as I went up the stairs.  I think I actually did.  I don't think I have heard him say that in about... oh, 8 years.

Extreme Squirrel Zombie Motorcross

We have this great book called Sharks vs. Trains.  One one page the shark and train are playing Extreme Squirrel Zombie Motorcross videogame.  Joren asked me in all sincerity if we could get a cord and plug in Extreme Squirrel Zombie Motorcross to our Wii so we could play it.  When I told him that that would not work, he was extremely disappointed.

Toad's everywhere

He is so observant.  He can spot them anywhere and he loves to catch them.  He found a toad the other day and we played with it for hours. I asked him to set him loose in the pond.  Of course he did not want to and wanted to keep him in the terrarium.  I let him keep him but after a few days I told him the toad needed to be set loose so he could get some food and live.  A little while later Joren said, "mom, don't look in that drawer."   Guess what I found in that drawer!  He had put his toad in a ziplock bag and back in the ziplock bag box back in the drawer for safe keeping!  Ahh...  Well, he assured me after that that the toad had been let loose in the pond.  Today the boys found a different toad in the backyard.  Joren ran in the house in great excitement and told Eirik to wait outside.  Then he dove under our ottoman in the living room and extracted his, somehow still living toad from under a cup he had placed upside down there.  That means that for at least a day and a half that toad lived in my living room under a cup and I did not notice!  Imagine my surprise if I had found him!  They were thrilled to have two toads to play with and compare.  Joren even let his toad loose in the pond and somehow recaptured it a bit later.  I was most impressed that Eirik actually held the toad today.  He usually instructs Joren when and where and what to do with all the living creatures they find together; to which Joren always willingly obliges.  What a cute team.

Family Fun in the backyard

Thanks Jennie Whiting for most of these pictures!

Labor Day Rockets

Eirk covering his ears because he was terrified of the blast off.

Family Fun Labor Day Mini Reunion