In the bleak midwinter

The biggest news around here is that James no longer takes naps. On January 27 approximately 12:52 pm James climbed out of his crib, walked down the stairs to hand me a Lego car he built for me and then said he was going back to bed. He did not go back to bed. Well maybe he climbed back in but he must have climbed back out because I heard him quietly playing in his room for the next hour until he got bored then came downstairs and acted like my universe wasn't completely destroyed.

We switched the kids rooms around that night. James and Erica switched places so now the boys share a room. Erica is now sleeping in the crib we converted to a toddler bed. It's tiny but it's all her own so she doesn't care one bit. Henry still shares a room but James is much tidier than Erica (James puts his dirty clothes in the basket) so he's happy. 

Here's Erica's room now. It's always been the baby room and will have the rocking chair in there until I find another place for it.

A side-by-side comparison of how it usually looks versus how it looks clean.

This is the boys' room.

It took me a week to realize I can go places in the afternoon.

James wakes up super early like Henry does. Which means James is bear from 2pm on and I have to be watchful that he doesn't fall asleep somewhere in the house or while we're driving. If I can keep him awake, he crashes at 7pm so that makes bedtime simpler.

He's my little bud and I will miss this age so much.

On Fridays I help in Erica's class for an hour. On our way out of the building James and I saw Henry in the hall. We loudly whispered his name but he didn't near us so I took a picture instead so I could show him later that I saw him.

Cold, muddy, or snowy days means we get out the table tunnel.

They play together nicely for the most part but there is some head bonking once in a while.

In an effort to simplify my life, I no longer pay my kids each week for their jobs or have different rewards that they can choose from. They are very good at doing their jobs because they know that can't do anything they want to do until they do. Instead, at the end of the month we go out to do something fun as a family. For January we went to an ice cream shop called Eli's in Payson that sells Aggie and BYU ice cream. It was perfect!

On Thursday Sarah was recognized at the school's student of the month ceremony.

We braved the snowy roads to get to the school at 8:15, ate doughnuts and juice and listened to all the teachers in the school brag about their student of the month.

 Her teacher talked about how hard Sarah works and how she always does her best work. James ran up in the middle to give her a hug.

 The smart girl that she is, she saw the typo on her certificate. Can you?

This is what it looked like that afternoon. Ironically, the schools weren't closed like they were on Monday and we had way more snow.

Today was the 5th grade wax museum. Sarah was Ruth Wakefield, the inventor of the chocolate chip cookie and a true American hero, if you ask me. She said she got really tired holding this pose for most of the day.

Erica's birthday was also this week but I'll save that for a separate post.

Flashback Friday: The Symes in Orem

The last Friday of every month I'm going to post related photos from my childhood and write down all the memories it jogs. Enjoy!

Summer of 1991, age 7. We sold our house in River Heights and rented a basement apartment while my parents looked for a new home in Utah County. For a few years my dad had been living with my grandparents in Springville Monday-Friday while working in Provo at Timpanogos Community Health Center (He previously worked at Bear River Mental Health in Logan). Once he pulled Timpanogos out of bankruptcy and was sure the job was stable (and was renamed Wasatch Mental Health), we all made the big move. Here's another story I found about his work. This is definitely a time in our family that I did not fully understand at the time : My dad at a high-pressure job, my mom taking care of 7 kids mostly on her own, my brother on a mission. They must have done their best to protect me from all of the stress during my kindergarten and first grade years.

Here's what I remember about that time in that basement apartment located approximately 900 N and 100 West (Near the Orem Macey's). (*Fun fact: Justin lived like a mile from here at this time. He moved to Springville in 1992.)

The apartment was so small. It was 4 bedrooms for 8 of us. My older brother was on a mission and my oldest sister moved out into an apartment of her own in Logan and didn't move with us (I think she was 19 at the time).

One side of the living room stored a bunch of boxes. We also had a storage unit that held a lot of our furniture and toys. I missed my stuff.

The owners lived upstairs. They had a trampoline in the backyard. We never had a trampoline of our own so this was new.

I never knew who my primary teachers were. There was a sub each week for the 3 months we were in that ward.

This was where I accidentally swallowed a button from my nightgown and thought I was going to die. I shared a room with my sister Rachel (the only time we ever shared) and she panicked when I panicked and lifted me upside-down and shook me. I did not die. I didn't even choke.

This is also where I shaved my legs for the first time (my sisters teased me on the trampoline and I didn't shave them again for years), and where I learned to make scrambled eggs (really salty).

Rachel got a Michael Bolton cassette tape for her birthday that May so we listened to a LOT of Michael Bolton that summer.

We were so excited when my parents took us to see our new house in Mapleton. We began attending our new ward right away.

January accomplishments

Erica had the honor of being the first of my kids to get a cavity filled. I knew she would be nervous and Henry was so kind to remind her about her appointment the day before so she could hardly sleep that night. Our dentist is super nice and told her everything that she was doing as she was doing it (Erica mostly ignored her and watched TV) but I think it calmed her down. On the ride home she was happy that she didn't even have to get a shot! She didn't believe me that she did get a shot, Dr. Shaw was just very sneaky! So I guess she didn't tell Erica everything that she was doing! 

James is really smart. Sometimes I don't realize how much he knows until I sit him down and see for myself. I have a set up alphabet flashcards and tested him one morning. Here are the letters he knew, one check of lowercase, one for uppercase.

He's 3 years and 2 months old. I'm pretty sure this is where Erica was at when she was at when she was 4 1/2 and I thought she was smart.

For the new child development program, Henry chose to make Brady Bars which is what he calls chocolate chip cookie bars. He did most of the work himself and they turned out so good. It took a long time to find a goal he actually wanted to do and food did the trick. I am speaking in church this Sunday about how it's going so far with our family. He's taught me a lot! 

After many failed attempts, I finally nailed angel food cake. Every time I make flan for Justin, I'm left nearly enough egg whites to try angel food cake so it's a good system. I think the key this time was using real cake flour (no cornstarch substitutions) and using a thermometer to make sure it's baked all the way (206 degrees). It was so good. Better than a box or a bakery.

Have you ever played Probe? Growing up, we had this game and it was so old or rare that none of my friends had ever played it anywhere else. It's a word guessing game like Wheel of Fortune. We played it all the time with family and friends. Good times. Fast forward to when Justin and I were dating and he had this game at his family's cabin and loved it too. That's when I knew we were meant to be.

Anyway, Justin's dad found it at DI so bought it so they'd have a copy at their house. Inside was a usedscore sheet! Our game was so old all the score sheets were long gone by the time I came around. I had never seen this before.

Who names their kid Staryl? Sterile?

Erica took this picture of Henry with her stuffed sloths.

I call them Sloth and Slothful

Lest I forget how much this kid loves Legos. He takes them everywhere we go.

He's also super entertained watching the numbers change on his digital clock in his room. He loves to see the numbers progress from 12:45 to 12:46 and knows what will come next and how to read it. He's weirdly smart.

This is the book I'm reading. I don't read a lot of nonfiction but I would if it were as entertaining as this. 

This passage convinced me I don't want anyone to touch my body after I die. Just roll me into the casket and bury me down, about 6 feet deep. You can have a funeral without the casket right there.

It's time to replace my beloved dish brush. I have strong feelings toward this dish brush. It's just perfect and now impossible to find. I bought my first one from Walmart many many years ago but then Vileda got bought out by O'Cedar in the US so Vileda is only sold in Canada and the UK (I researched all this. I told you I love this brush). Luckily I found it on Amazon and ordered one all the way from England but that was 3 years ago. But now I can't even do that anymore. Why didn't I stock up???

Three years is a long life for a dish brush. It's such a good brush but it's pretty mashed on the backside. Still usable but not as great as it once was.

Here are my boring old replacements. I have very low expectations and am a little bitter about it all. The Vileda is under the sink because I think it can still outperform these new ones.

For Honor Roll, Sarah made dinner Saturday night. She made creamy Italian chicken (she's blending the sauce below), cooked rice, chopped toppings and made a fluffy fruit salad. She did great and now I know she can make dinner! This is life changing.

Yesterday I took the kids to Brick Oven to use their free meals from school. They behaved pretty well. We went right as it opened and had an entire room to ourselves so that was nice.

Sarah loves to see the temple

Sarah's favorite primary song when she was just tiny was "I love to see the temple." She's always had a love for the temple, even from afar.  Yesterday she finally got to go! What made it extra special was that her cousin Allison came too, also her first time. Plus her cousin Jared, my sister and her husband and my parents. She was all smiles and on the verge of giddiness the entire time. She even asked to be a witness before it was her turn to be baptized. And she asked when she can go back before we had even left the parking lot.

And then my parents took us all out for lunch. It was a special morning, for sure.

New Yearsy stuff

We hoped to do something fun everyday during the break but we all got sick so there was much more downtime than planned. Thursday Justin and I did sealings with my parents and some of my siblings. I hadn't been to the temple with some of them since my wedding!

And then I was pretty sick Saturday and Sunday and I don't remember what we did. Monday we went to the arcade. James loved the motorcycle game.

 Tuesday was Justin's birthday!!! That morning he played basketball at the church. I bought him a bunch of gatorades to share with the other guys he plays with, kind of like a class treat. While he was gone, we decorated and wrapped a few of his presents.

 They were all food so I don't know why he was this excited.

 He ordered a new cell phone that hadn't come yet. We love him more than just snacks.

We had sushi he bought at the store and steak he grilled for lunch. Then we played a couple of games. We met a bunch of family at a Mexican restaurant for dinner then went to his parent's house for birthday flan that we made together the night before.

I love this guy. Everyone loves this guy.

Then we played more games, of course. James lasted until 9 (we put him down in the guestroom). Erica lasted until 10:30 and asked to go home. So we did but it was nearly midnight before Justin and I got into bed. And that's how Justin turned 36 and we closed out the decade.