Happy Birthday!

Well today is Ben's birthday and I have been planning for weeks to make him this fabulous cake and have dinner and go to Provo and then... our whole family got hit with the worse flu we have ever had! Soo instead of partying Ben took care of the kids all day, fetched me water, started my movies, helped me with my homework, and he is currently out delivering my papers for the ward activity tomorrow. I feel so bad that we aren't doing something fun but I promised him that amazing cake next week so that blog post is forthcoming. Thankfully, one thing that doesn't make me ill is blogging about him so that is his birthday gift for now. Today I am going to list 10 random facts about Ben...

1: He can sing all the words to Frank Sinatra by Cake, actually he knows all the words to the entire album- this is random because the first time I ever heard it, he just started singing all the songs by heart.
2: He loves Spider Solitaire.
3: He enunciates all his words, particularly “poem” and “mountain”
4: He recycles everything and has even taken stuff I have thrown away out of the trash and into recycling. Seriously who does that?? Of course he will have me say in his behalf that he only takes clean trash from the top of the garbage and doesn't go digging around. PS- his definition of "digging" is a lot different than mine.
5: He flosses his teeth every night. I wish I was that good at flossing.
6: He calls Olivia “poo-poo”. Of all the names to call your little baby girl, he chooses that. The funny thing is, he says it in the sweetest way like he was calling her "lovely" or "sweetie" except it's "poo-poo".
7: He doesn’t like cashews. This is something he just told me the other day.
8: He falls asleep almost on demand, including on the couch while friends are over. :)
9: He is VERY picky about movies. He won't watch anything unless we check it on kids in mind. I am SOO happy we have a clear play dvd player now!
10: He says things like “Schneeliously?” instead of “Seriously?” and “Good Gravy” instead of “Good Grief”

Well that's all. On a more serious note, I thank God everyday for sending me Ben. Without him, I don't know where I would be. He is my very best friend and continually inspires me to be better. Happy Birthday to "my person" Ben! :)

Sledding

I am SOO happy the smog is gone! This is what it looked like out my window during the early evening, not even night. It has been so dark and dingy and sick. I almost forgot why I loved Logan. But on Tuesday a storm rolled through and took it all away. Yay! So we celebrated by going sledding down Old Main!





After sledding we went out to dinner at The Beehive Grill to support Andrew's preschool. It was soo nice, we hadn't been out to eat since October and I can't even remember the last time we took the kids out with us.

What would Andrew do?

So today I was writing in this journal that I keep for Andrew and Olivia. I started it when Andrew was a baby and just write in it at least once a month listing all the funny things they are saying and doing or things I am frustrated with as a parent, etc. Lately Andrew has been kind of a stinker to me. As I kept writing though, I realized how wonderful it would be to have more personality traits like him.

1) He gets excited about EVERYTHING! He gets excited when I say I made a new track for him to play on, he gets excited over clementine oranges, he gets excited to the point of peeing himself when someone knocks on the door. He always says, "You can come play to me if you want." If I say okay I will. He cries out, "Okay! Let's play!" I wish I could be as excited about life as Andrew is.

2) He is so forgiving. While he was playing outside the other day, one of our neighbor kids threw snow in his face. This was some seriously hard snow and he had scratches all over his nose and forehead that were bleeding. I was furious. I ran outside and hugged him and then said, "Okay we are going inside now." He then started to scream at me! He didn't want to go inside. He wanted to stay outside and play with this kid who just threw hard snow in his face. He is so forgiving of others, especially me. I wish I could be as forgiving as Andrew.

3) He doesn't judge people. If you play trains with Andrew for 10 minutes, I don't care who you are, you are Andrew's new favorite person. We were once in Wal-Mart and our checker was a little strange looking; he had tattoos, piercings, and a really low cut shirt(is that not a little strange on a man? haha). Andrew was still as friendly as ever, not even noticing things like that. This guy seriously perked up as Andrew talked to him. It was like he had a wall up and acted all tough but when he knew he wasn't being judged, he opened up. I wish I could be as open-minded as Andrew.

4) He has very little inhibitions. I am amazed how quickly he is picking up this Spanish thing. I can tell he is a little shy at first but then says, "Hola" or "Gracias" without any fear of it sounding wrong or being made fun of. I think a lot of time adults are afraid to try something new for fear of what people will think, I know I am like that. How nice would it be to feel confident enough to run outside in your underwear? Not that anyone should :), but how nice would it be to not care that all the neighbors are watching?

As I finished up writing in Andrew's journal, my complaints turned into thanks. I am so very grateful for all the lessons my children have taught me. They have given me more understanding to what Christ meant when he said to become as little children. Maybe instead of being a cautious over-thinking adult when things don't go my way, I will wonder "What would Andrew do?"


Excited about everything.


Last place in the race but doesn't even care.


Not afraid to try new things.

Cute Pictures

Here are some recent funny pics of Andrew and Olivia. Olivia was so tired after story time and while I was busy putting all our stuff away she fell asleep right on the couch.
Andrew has now stopped taking naps in the day. It was too much work to try and get him to sleep at nap and then at bedtime. He goes to sleep early now and does "quiet time" in his room for an hour or two each day. The other day after preschool he crashed during quiet time in this cute position.

Check out this miracle! My children playing together without fighting!


Olivia loves to put Andrew's underwear on her head. This is her signature "Olivia look" It means she is not pleased.

This is the nice cute Olivia. Wow, she has some serious mood swings.


My schedule has now changed since my last post. I am no longer taking the class up on campus and running all over town twice a week. Instead, I am taking it online and I also signed up for Geology 1010, a general requirement. I figured that if I take three classes a semester, it will take me 5 or 6 semesters to graduate so I am going to try doing that. Wish me luck!

Another Semester

That's right, tomorrow is the first day of school... again. This semester I am only taking two classes: Family Finance & Economic Issues for Individuals and Families. Hopefully these two classes will really come in handy this semester as Ben takes 18 credits and will thus be working very little. Andrew also started preschool and has story time once a week. I also need to try and keep in touch with my friends. It is going to be a crazy few months. I really pray we can somehow make it all work without going crazy. Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be the most chaotic. I drive into town, drop Andrew at preschool, drive home, drive back three hours later, pick him up from preschool, eat our sack lunch in the car and find something to entertain us for an hour until Ben's class ends, switch Ben while he takes the kids home for nap, go to class, get picked up by Ben and switch while he goes to class, go home, start dinner, wait for Ben to get home from his long bus ride. That makes three trips into town and one bus ride. I actually think it is better for me to be too busy than not busy enough though, especially during winter. I get way more things done when I have less time and I love making schedules and plans for my day, week, life. I am just a planning sorta person. Anyway- mostly this post was for me to sort out my crazy life and feel like I have some control, sorry if it's just rambling to the rest of you. I am famous for that.

PS- Did anyone notice my new side bars with a menu plan for the week (thanks for the idea Magen)and books I am reading? I try to post hyperlinks to the recipes if they are online. I think everyone should add a menu to their blog so I can have more dinner ideas AND you should get a goodreads account because it's really fun to see what everyone is reading and how they like it.

Neighbors

Almost everyday while I am starting dinner, I see our cute little next door neighbor walk home from school. Today she came rushing up to our door instead of hers. "Hmmm, I wonder if she is selling something," I said to myself. Ben went and answered it but before I could make it to the door to see what she was selling, she ran right past me towards the hall.
"Hi! Where is your bathroom?" I directed her down the hall.
"What is going on?" I asked.
"She had to go to the bathroom."
When she came out, I asked her if she was locked out of her house. She replied, "No, I have a key. I just had to go really bad and thought I better stop here instead." Hahaha. Seriously she is soo funny. I love my little neighborhood.

First Day of School

Well Andrew had his first day of preschool yesterday. I can't believe I have a child old enough to be in preschool. Oddly enough, I still remember my first day of preschool at Mrs. Kargis's school in Duchesne. I remember she had a fish tank and a big tree house that I loved to play in. I think this preschool will be an interesting challenge for Andrew because it is bilingual and they speak Spanish for half of the time. Usually when he doesn't understand something he just blocks it out. This was evident when I came to pick him up and while the teacher was reading a book in Spanish, she had to stop twice to tell Andrew to either scoot back or stop tickling his neighbors. If he wasn't right in the teachers face or bugging neighbors, he was rolling on the floor laughing. All the other children were quietly sitting and listening. My first thought was... "What is wrong with all these other children?? It certainly isn't mine that is the problem, right?" Haha, just kidding. Obviously we need to work on teaching him to hold still for more than a couple minutes. So... when he got home, we had a "mock storytime" lesson. I sat and read a book for Andrew and Ben while Ben preceded to tickle Andrew and roll on the floor. I made Andrew tell Ben the right way to act during storytime at preschool. We will pray it works!