Thanksgiving

We invited the Bud's and the Walkers for Thanksgiving this year.  We kept it small on purpose and I'm so glad we did.  They are both amazing cooks, totally reliable and the kids all like each other.  Liz brought fun crafts for all of us to do which I loved.  My heart was full of thanks this year.  We are so blessed.  I am so glad to have great friends here while we are so far away from our family.

Eirik's first Tae Kwon Do tournament

Eirik had his first Tae Kwon Do tournament this week.  He was tested against his peers on all the things he has learned thus far.  Every child brought home trophies and it was plain to see on Eirik's face that this was a proud day!  Paul has been sad that Tae Kwon Do consistently falls on days when he is working.  So, on this day, I brought along our good friend Lizzy to help me.  She was a lifesaver!

Yeah Eirik!!

Magical Painting Sunday Afternoon

On Saturday our ward's primary volunteered to host a primary activity about the temple at the stake center adjascent to the temple.  While the children learned about the temple, the adults got to attend a session.  What a great service!!  It was great to get to go and ponder life with my husband while I was not stressed about my children. 

Saturday morning was a strain.  Joren's behavior was sapping all my goodness out of me.  I insisted that the kids play outside for a while and I got out my best parenting book called "5 Spiritual Solutions" and re-read a chapter I had previously loved, then I asked the Lord to help me be more patient and loving to my kids.  At the end of the chapter there was a suggestion that sometimes we have to ask for the help of the members of our ward or our families and friends to teach our children the lessons they might not learn from us.  I asked the Lord to help Joren respond to someone at the primary activity.  As we were having potluck dinner after the session a sister came up to me and told me how much she loved my children, how they are angel children.  She said each Sunday she can't wait to hear the things that Joren says.  She got a tear in her eye as she talked about how special they are.  She told how as the kids were walking around the temple Joren was really cold and Eirik took off his sweater so he was wearing only a white shirt and put it on Joren so Joren would have two sweaters.  I feel she was guided to share that with me in answer to my prayer because I did look at my children with more love after her kind words.  I asked Joren later how much he believed in God, a tiny bit, a little bit, a lot, or a whole lot.  He has been telling me for weeks that God is not real, but today he said, a little bit so I take that as an improvement.
After the kids had been indulged in quite a bit of TV time on Saturday I told them there would be no TV on Sunday and we brainstormed a lot of activities we could do to fill up our whole big Sunday.  It was a great precursor to a wonderful Sunday afternoon.  After a lunch, we got out the paints and my boys painted with me for over 3 hours.  They were self motivated and so creative.  Everyone was so nice and fun to be with.  We had a great time!  I think it was the first time I have actually worked on my own painting with my children and I am really excited about the progress!  Then we all went out in the dark and had a late night (5:30pm) walk around the neighborhood.  Grosse Ile has no street lights and it is a magical place at night.  We are always uplifted when we get outside for a walk.  Now that it is getting colder, we have missed more days and I think it is worth getting out there even if it is really cold because we all come home so refreshed. 

We are loving reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder stories together at night.  We are reading "Life in the Big Woods"  What a great book!!  I hope my kids really pick up the values in these books.  They resonate with me in such a big way. 

W HOP U (heart) YOORW COLSH (heart) EIRIK

Translation: "We hope you love your collage. Love, Eirik

This collage is actually all Joren's work, and it was not intended for his mother, but Eirik loves to give things away, even if they aren't his, and he knows I love art and that I love my children's drawings, so he made me this card and gifted Joren's amazing collage wall to me.  Each drawing is a person, and they almost all look pretty near the same.  They all have a head, eyes and two legs.  He's not really interested in drawing much more than that at this time, but he has a story for each person and loves them each individually, just as I do.  This wall is still growing and growing and growing.  I think it is awesome!

Acorn Squash with pork Sausage

Tonight I made Acorn Squash with pork Sausage stuffing. (Delicious I might add).  I used the acorn squash that Joren begged for me to buy at the farmer's market.  Of course he did not know what it was when he picked it out and tonight after getting one look at the meal, he would not even come near the table.  From around the corner I heard his little voice say, "I feel bad at myself for picking out that dumb acorn squash."  Sadly, he went to bed hungry.  Poor guy.

On Monday we had one of those wonderful family nights that I hope I will remember in clear detail when I am older.  After dinner, we sat at the table and had a lesson about what reverence is. We talked about how when you are respectful and still in the forest, deer and squirrels might eat of your hands and if you are loud and obnoxious, you will miss the mysteries of nature around you.  Then I compared that to how the spirit teaches us and talks to us.  The kids listened long enough to hear all the stories and then have fun playing a game in complete silence/ reverence.  After I bore testimony Paul turned off the lights and brought out the glow sticks and put on some awesome dance music and we all got crazy.  It was the perfect mix of the things I love about my family.  Good food/ spiritual talks and lots of fun. 
Paul put the glow sticks on strings so we could swing them around and make a spectacular light show. 
After my lesson Joren looked at me and said, "mom, you're wrong you know.  God is not real."  I sure hope that's just the 3 year old in him talking.  I told him that everyone can tell him that God is real, but he will never know for sure unless he can feel it with his heart and he has to be reverent and listen to hear the spirit talk to him.  He has a reckless and free spirit.  He has discovered he can sit and draw for hours though.  We do crafts every day and he is always asking if we can make something.  I love it!

Can you sing that song...

Can you sing the song about the opossum in snow?
Do you mean, "blossom of snow may you bloom and grow?" 
Edelweiss?  Yes! mystery solved. 

63" Plasma Screen TV

Paul works with a guy (Dr. Whitworth) who moved into a new house that had a home theater system.  He no longer needed his huge TV's so, guess what?  Paul bought his 63" plasma screen TV for $375!  We installed it last night.  As soon as I realized I was going to be the one helping put it on the wall, my mind began racing with visions of me dropping this thing.  3 years ago Dr. W bought it for $6000!  It weighs over 300 lbs so I was nervous.  It was quite the feat for us to heft it up over shoulder height.  My legs were shaking for a whole hour after the adrenaline wash of that install.  It's a sweet screen and we feel pretty spoiled!

It pays to be older. :)

Last night on a cool, crisp autumn night, we were driving home from a Relief Society meeting where we learned to can apple pie filling and make caramel apples. I drove the kids along the river front and then up to the point of the island hoping they might fall asleep on the way home.  The boys started asking to hear some spooky Halloween stories.  I told a spooky one that turned funny which disappointed Joren, who begged for a scarier one.  I turned down a dirt road in a wooded hiking area.  When we were "deep" in the forest, I pretended the car stalled and opened the window.  I pretended to see glowing eyes and to hear howling and ghosts.  Joren loved it, but Eirik got freaked out and started to cry.  It was not the nicest thing I've ever done, but it sure was funny!  We are really enjoying the Halloween season this year.

"what is alive in you?"

Paul had a patient this week who had seen 3 or 4 dermatologists before and had suffered from acute red scaly plaque and fissures on both hands and arms and feet for over 6 years.  He is part of the cement worker's guild and works with cement every day.  Because of his extremely painful condition he was considering going on disability because continuing to work was becoming excruciating.  He decided to ask one more doctor.  Fortunately, it was Paul because he was smart enough to put together the facts that leather gloves and cement both contain potassium dichromate.  The leather gloves and boots he was wearing to protect him from the cement was actually exacerbating the allergic condition he had developed to the cement.  Paul prescribed new canvas gloves and arm protection along with a different boots and several medications.  After one week, his skin was completely cleared up.  He brought his wife and kids in with him for his follow up visit to thank Paul.   This big, tough tattooed guy cried and gave Paul a big hug along with a plate of enchiladas as a thank you. Paul said that things like this happen every day. 
At a luncheon this week one of his superiors asked them all to answer the question, "what is alive in you?"  He said that being able to help people every day is incredibly fulfilling and studying for boards, while stressful, it is no longer working to pass a test, but each thing he studies is linked with a real person and the possibility to actually help people with the knowledge is very real which keeps him going and keeps him excited.
Watch for more of his success stories.  I have to pry them out of him, but I sure love hearing them.

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.