The Day I Didn't Mother Anyone

Last Saturday I went to Logan with my parents. Without my husband, without my kids for 12 hours. I wanted us all to go but we would either have to drive 4 hours in a day with James or sleepover at my brother's house with James. Neither option sounded great so Justin insisted I just ride up with my parents. I got to be a kid, sister, aunt but wasn't in charge of anyone. So weird.

This. This is why I went.

Every year USU puts on an agriculture day for the local growers and for $12 you can eat all the food you want. Yes, that's a lamb kabob in the center. Pork loin, beef strip, lamb sausage, onion rings, salad, roll, corn on the cob, Gossner chocolate milk, cheese sandwich, Sanpete turkey. Not pictured: apple, dried cherries, ice cream sandwich. I went back for a second kabob but forgot to get my free tulip bulbs. They've been doing this for several years and my sister and parents go but I hadn't been until now. It wasn't as crowded this year because it didn't coincide with Homecoming. I thought it was the best thing ever.

My dad, brother, brother-in-law and nephew went to the football game so Lisa and Jaana and I took a nostalgic tour of campus. Old Main is my most favorite. We could see the A from our house in River Heights when I was little. I had 3 classes in this building while I was a student and I loved it.

Looked the same inside, just empty on a Saturday afternoon.

I can't believe how much campus has changed and how much I had forgotten in 14 years. "Has this building always been here?" I'd say about a building built in 1899. Uh, yes.

This lady in the center is also why I went. This is my niece Jaana and it was also her 21st birthday! What?! If she's 21 then I can't be 26 and I am definitely still 26 so there's something going on here. She's a junior-senior this year. And her mom and USU alum Lisa is on the right.

After that we rounded up my sister and her boys and my mom and went to a corn maze and the American West Heritage center. I hadn't been there for awhile either and it looked totally different too.

They had some fun activities for the kids and since I didn't have any kids with me, it was up to me to make use of them.

 This made my legs tired.

 Jaana won Big Jenga.

 On our way out I saw this super cute baby cow. I took a picture for Erica.

Then we got dinner and then sang happy birthday to Jaana and then I rode back home with my parents. It was so strange not buckle anyone in a seat or worry about feeding or cleaning or looking after anyone. It's been at least a year since I'd been "on my own" for so long. It was a nice mental break to just go with the flow and not be in mom mode. I'd make it a tradition but Justin and the kids would enjoy it so much and next time I want to enjoy it with them.

James at 11 Months

Wow last month went by so fast. One more month until his birthday! How the??

Here's what's new with James. 

He's got a cute face (not new). His hair is long and shaggy and I don't know how to cut it. I'm guessing a buzz cut is on the horizon.

He loves his blanket. It's soothing like a binky. If he's getting cranky, one of the kids is sent to fetch it. James's reaction is usually something like this.  He also holds it to his mouth or just straight up sucks on a corner.

 I wonder where he learned it.

His favorite place to play is on Henry's and Erica's bed. He also likes Sarah's room because there's lots of stuff to pull onto the floor. He likes to be outside but he puts everything in his mouth and has no qualms about heading straight for the road so it gets a little tiresome having to watch him so closely.

He also likes to crawl up into my lap just like this. I'll rub his back for a minute then he'll crawl away. All. The. Time.

He's still a pretty loud and whiny baby. When he's content and just quiet and hanging out, we almost don't know what to do. "Whoa, he's being so happy." He'll snuggle with Justin while watching TV but he never does that with me. He'll read books on my lap longer so I guess it's fair. I'm hoping those moments will increase and his boo-hoo-ness will decrease. Justin and I take turns roaming the halls with him at church. He just has to be busy all the time. His favorite thing to do is crawl around and pull things onto the ground, empty out drawers, try to climb on things. Typical baby stuff.

Luckily I have this girl to keep him entertained and contained. She'll try so hard to play with him while I'm in the shower. He spends the whole time crying at the door but I can hear her drag in tons of toys to get him to play. It's so sweet of her.

 He gets so excited to see her every morning. "Good morning Jamers!"she says.  She's the best sister. She asks all the time when he's going to be small again and does not like it when I tell her that someday he'll be taller than her.

Henry Takes his Love of Football to New Levels and We Go To the Zoo Again!

Henry used his birthday money to buy a Patriots outfit for Halloween and everyone wanted to try on the helmet.

Heisman!

No one can pull it off quite like Henry though. He's worn his helmet at least part of the day every day for a week. He asked me to iron on Tom Brady's number on the back. He's watching the Patriots play in this picture. I've got tons of video clips of the game on my phone that he took but I'll spare you.

We went to the zoo again. We've been several times over the course of Sarah's life but not for awhile since Erica didn't remember any of it.

 Hey they do look alike. Now I see what strangers keep commenting on. (sarcasm)

 I hope these were intended to be climbed on because my kids can't resist.

 I love it when the animals are close to the windows. Don't love it when they just sleep the whole time but I'll take it.

Just hanging out 12 inches from a lion like it's no big deal, Mom.

 Erica did not want to squat down.

 My little apes.

 So many pictures of Henry. Mostly because he likes posing.

 My favorite was the new polar bear. He swam back and forth in front of the windows putting on a good show. So cute.

 These are snow leopards. There are only like 40 left in the world.

 And it's no trip to the zoo without the lion drinking fountain. I think it's the only thing left from my childhood days. Well, the small reptile house aka "stinky house" is still there too.

Then we went home and Justin and Henry went deer hunting for the evening. Henry is a good hiker but wanted to get back to the truck asap so he could put his helmet on.

The Art of Homemaking: Family Home Evening

I love family home evening but if you saw what our family home evenings look like you'd probably wonder why the heck why. When Sarah was a toddler we began doing family home evening. Lessons were simple back then, usually just talking about a picture of a scripture story.  Her favorite was the Good Samaritan or "owie" as she called it. For weeks after that lesson, no matter what we talked about in family home evening, she would pull the picture book away from us and search until she found "owie" and want to hear the story again.

It was a few years after that, I think Henry was a baby, when we were having another family home evening. It was getting more difficult to gear a lesson two small children with differing attention spans and activity levels. But the lesson was going comparatively well and must have been reverent enough for me to have a strong spiritual impression. While I watched Justin and the kids talk together, the words so clearly entered my heart of "This. This is what you need to keep doing."

We keep doing. Some FHE lessons have been great. A few have ended with banishing a child or two to bed. Most have been a struggle to keep everyone out of others' personal space. Let's be honest, a large part of our energy is keeping each child sitting up. I've had to reflect on that witness more than once for the courage and patience to keep going.

You know, I just realized how instructional it was of the Spirit to testify to me that I was doing the right thing during an ordinary, not especially profound family home evening. The standard was set mercifully realistic that night. All I need to strive for is the simple and sincere family nights like we had that night. I can do that.

These coloring pages are from a FHE a few months ago. We've been studying The Proclamation on the Family this year and this night's lesson was about the temple. I had each child write down three years. The first was the year that they would turn 12 and be able to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. The next year was when they turned 18 or 19 years old and would be able to go to the temple in preparation for a mission. The third date is the year that James turns 18. 2034 is the earliest year that the six of us can be together inside the temple. It's our family goal: At the door in 2034.

I can testify that family home evening isn't just the prophet's program but the Lord's because the Spirit told me so. But since then, I can testify that family home evening is good for my family and will become more vital as my children grow and the influence of the world grows in their lives. I can keep doing.

While Dad's Away......

Hunting season started early and intense this year. Justin finally drew his bull elk tag and he just got home last night from the hunt. He's been putting in for this hunt for 17 years. That's half his life. He was gone for a long time. Here's what we did while he was away.

I was throwing away stuff out of cleaning Henry's room while he was at school and I found this homemade coloring book. See how he spelled his middle name?

 

I have a sign on my bathroom door that says "Do not talk to mom when she's in the shower" because I can't understand anything they say through the door when the water is running but mostly because I just want to be left alone for a few minutes, sheesh. Anyway, Sarah is really good about not disturbing me but sometimes she leaves me notes about what went on when I was indisposed:

(I don't think anything in the house sums up both daughters' personalities as much as this note.)

Toilet paper was on sale at Costco and I bought it even though I was already stocked up. I ran out of places to put 45 rolls.

One of the Saturdays the Spanish Fork airport was having a car/plane/train show and the kids had free passes from school so I went to a public event with all my kids without Justin.

Plane:

Train:

Automobile:

"Sarah, go stand by that Aston Martin, that's the kind of car James Bond drives." "Who's James Bond?" But she did it anyway because she's awesome.

I don't know what kind of car this is but Henry liked it.

Check out the clouds rolling down the canyon.

 

Street racing on the runway was to start right about then but it didn't. We waited 30 extra minutes but it still wasn't even close to starting and James was going nuts being tired and not being able to crawl anywhere so I bribed the kids with doughnuts to leave. Without an event to watch, it only took like 30 minutes to see all the displays and ride the train. If it would have cost us anything, I would have been upset that there wasn't a whole lot to do and the event was so delayed. But a nice old man gave me more free passes going in so we all got in for free.

James loves the trampoline thus I love the trampoline.

Since Justin was gone I needed a project. I've been on a quest to find the most perfect homemade ice cream recipe. (I'm close so I'll post my findings when I'm sure.) While I was testing yet another recipe one day, Erica decided to do her own quest of "which sprinkles are the best."

This was her highly scientific tasting method. "I think I need to try the red crunchies again." She picked the multi-colored ones as the best because they had pink sprinkles.

James is impossible to contain in the seat of the cart unless he's buckled in. I discovered this half-way through a Walmart shopping trip when he was hanging half out of the cart. Unfortunately the cart I picked had a broken buckle so the safest place (in the most relative sense) was in the basket. He promptly stood up and began swatting his arm and yelling.

Erica seized the opportunity to reclaim the seat.

Since Justin was gone for so long, I didn't want him to miss out on anything, especially James's regular whining so I sent him pictures like this.

Here's the boy we know and love.

Erica threw up in her bed one night, all over herself and her blanket. I, being in a sleepy stupor, made a bigger mess of things while getting her out of her puke covered nightgown. It took me a full hour to bathe her, clean up the trail of puke I made, put everything in the washer, clean up a second round, and make her a new bed on my floor. 

She fell asleep the next day right in the middle of watching a show. I was busy with the baby and the show kept playing and I didn't even notice she was zonked out for maybe 30 minutes. She slept on the couch until the kids came home from school.

(And let the record show I cleaned up 2 more barfing incidents and 2 pee accidents and a diaper blow-out from various other children while he was gone .)

The best part about Justin being gone (parking in the middle of the garage and sleeping in the center of the bed are the only other good things) is that I don't have to make real dinner. We had sandwiches and breakfast stuff so much Erica even asked when we were going to have dinner food for dinner again. Ha! Henry loves chicken pot pie but Justin does not so I made it while he was gone. 

I don't know why he doesn't like it. It looks awesome.

Lastly the kids had their dental check ups on Friday. It was Erica's first exam. She was not feeling well that day and wasn't in the mood to cooperate but the hygienist sweet-talked her into getting her teeth cleaned. 

Teddy on her tummy and a princess in each hand helped. And Dr. Shaw is super sweet. She asked all the right questions about princesses to distract Erica. And yay no cavities for any of the kids!

This little forest creature has taken up residency in our backyard. It digs holes and tunnels in our hillside and perches on our porch. It has a long bushy tail. Is it a squirrel? It's probably the closest thing we'll have to a pet.

Justin got home last night with his elk. He says he waited until the last day in the worst weather conditions, in the most remote location to get his elk on purpose. :) I'm just glad he's home and that it will take 17 years to draw another bull elk tag. And I pray the elk quarters hanging in my garage is a temporary arrangement.