Gobble, Gobble

Turkey Day is here again, yummy, yummy-o! With a gobble, gobble here, and a gobble gobble there . . . We sang that right before eating on Thanksgiving, in an attempt to convince my new brother in law that it's a tradition. Don't think he bought it, but the singing was boisterous, and my kids thought it was funny. (By the way, Andrew saying, "Gobble, gobble," is adorable. He loves to say it, too.) I vote that it's a new tradition.

I finally found a pie crust I love, without the pie in it even. Lots of people took turns (willingly) holding and snuggling my barfing baby (Katie nearly convinced her to switch families). I got to chat with my fun family. My kids were nearly continually entertained. I laughed playing games. I got to be with Gary for days in a row. Gary told me to go take a nap sometimes. There was also pie in the crust that was pretty delicious. Awesome. Thanksgiving at my parents house was just what we all needed one month after adding another baby to our family.

It's interesting trying to capture a good memory. If I write that we played The Game of Things and it was hilarious, it probably doesn't evoke a memory later. If I mention that at one point Gary broke down into his famous Gary giggle, I'll at least know it was good. If I say I had fun dancing or playing Rockband, it probably seems standard. Might help to say that even though I am a terrible singer I felt like an actual rockstar singing Pink's "Who Knew" as a duet with Kristen. It's okay if I forget I spent the days mostly taking care of kids, but even so, it was good for me to do so when I felt like I could relax. My dad took us all out to lunch on Saturday, and it was delicious. Noah said his food (a quesadilla) tasted like dessert. And did I mention I loved the pie? Yummy, yummy-o . . .

Kristen loves Andrew. Andrew is crazy about Kristen. Isn't it great to have aunts?

They're all hungry.

Braden was embarrassed for his solo shot with the hat. Sorry, now it's on the internet.

The cousins had a blast playing together, mostly playing zombies. Sometimes shirtless. Boys . . . My favorite game was when they played house and Andrew was the baby. You should have seen Sophie try to carry him.

Grandma has a way of making Lissy happy.

Sophie was a little mommy to Elisabeth. She wanted to rock her all the time.

Josh got to take his class "pet" Chester to grandma's. He was so excited to do everything with him.

Beckett and Andrew had some fun.

These babies love to cuddle with grandpa.

Josh and Noah (and Chester) waiting for the Festival of Lights parade. The random kid to the side of Josh was also smiling for the photo. Shouldn't have cropped him out.

Serious parade watching going on.

Andrew LOVED the parade. He got especially excited about one of the snowman floats.

The kids liked all of the floats, but they were mostly excited to see Santa at the end.  After we saw Santa I asked, "Do you think Santa saw you?" Yes, they nodded excitedly. "Do you think he'll come to our house?" Noah got a funny look on his face and said, "We didn't ask."

Elisabeth and cousin Violet, who is about 4 months older. They are shaping up to be great friends.

Andrew was counting the babies. He got up to seven.

In my hometown there are lots of fun Christmas light displays, and Josh got his picture taken in front of his favorite one.

Shouldn't This Mom Gig Be Easier?

I worry about Lissy sometimes lately. I worry that one day she will be so tired it will hurt to open her eyes, her back will be in spasms for reasons related to pregnancies, and she'll go to lay her baby on the floor to change a diaper, but will have to pull a nasty piece of pear out of the carpet to do so, and in her unshowered, demoralized state will scream in her mind, "Why didn't anyone tell me what this was like?! Why did my mother only write about cute little children who say amusing things?" When she asks me, I will have forgotten the truth, and will say, "Just don't let the kids eat in the living room." Then she will feel like a real winner.

The truth: I don't have much time to blog. Well, really any, but I try to squeeze it in. I do it because I'm trying to create a little piece of family history, and I want to record what I love. It makes me happy. Writing it and reading it reminds me of my millions of blessings.

The other truth: Motherhood is not easy, dear Elisabeth. Take this morning. I wake up after a not-enough sleep and immediately realize I promised to make rice pudding for breakfast. Easy enough. Also, Josh did not do his homework last week. At all. Not too hard. So, I get started. My baby wakes up screaming to be fed. Things get interesting. I try to cook while holding screaming baby, and also supervise homework and a preschooler who wants to cook. When things are at the right point, I start nursing in a chair in front of the stove, still supervising homework and cooking. Toddler comes downstairs with an obviously stinky diaper. That will have to wait. When it's time for baby to come up for air, I run to grab Josh's clothes, which I have to dig for because I haven't folded laundry in so long. Supervise food, keep going on homework, take ornament from toddler . . . Baby throws up on me and the kitchen floor. I don't know where it landed because I'm not wearing my glasses, so I put a paper towel under my foot and resume duties. Throw-up resumes as well. Food is finally ready, in a rush to get Josh dressed and out the door, and I look down and notice the baby's pajama leg is full of poo. With the two messy diapers our house doesn't smell like "Christmas Cottage" anymore . . . Don't know how Josh gets to school, but he does, with a kiss on the head even. And that's the first 50 minutes of the day.

Another example. I wrote this last week: I fed my kids no-bake cookies for breakfast this morning. I was soooo tired, I may have hit a new low (Though the oatmeal and peanut butter makes it better than donuts and cinnamon rolls. Totally justified.) I am usually so good at making myself do things even if I don't feel like I can, but, wow. Today I couldn't. Probably a holdover from last night when I was doing various tasks until 12:30, then I was so exhausted I said I was just going to brush my teeth, then fall in bed. I stumbled to the bathroom to grab my toothbrush, and a mouse ran across my foot. YIKES! As if I needed less sleep.

So, why is motherhood so hard if it's so important? Doesn't seem fair sometimes. I don't really know, but I do know a few things.

First, this phase will go by quickly, and I will miss it when it's gone. I already miss toddler Josh, baby Noah, and 1 year old Andrew. I'm never getting them back. So, I have to love up what I've got, because I won't have it for long.

Second, the most difficult roles I have taken on in my life, missionary and mother, have also brought the most joy. When I ran track in high school, my successes were pretty well correlated with the amount of gut-wrenching workouts I put in.  I remember thinking it wasn't fair that finding someone to marry was so hard, and that it now the best thing in my life. Making this connection reminds me of one of my favorite articles, called Missionary Work and the Atonement, by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. While it's not talking about motherhood, there are a lot of things to the following excerpt that connect for me. I won't elaborate on how right now, I'll just leave you to read and ponder.

Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?
You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience.Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.
Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price.
For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.

So, maybe it's hard because it is so important . . .

P.S. These are not the most difficult things to happen ever. Just so happened to have had those experiences last week (I wrote most of this several days ago). And that was before Noah cut a nice shirt with scissors, dropped 5 pounds of honey, and Andrew pulled the front off of a kitchen drawer. Once again, survivable things. But those are easier to write about than worse things, so I do. They're also harder to deal with when you're practically in a coma. :)

Soccer Times Two

Ah, pictures of sunny Saturdays at soccer games . . . Makes me feel a little wistful for those days and that weather, but it will come again, and now we have Lissy, so next time it will be better. Not the point. The point is Josh and Noah. BOTH of them got to play this fall! Noah was so excited to finally get a chance, and Josh loved it as much as ever. And since we have friends on both teams, it was always a good get-away for me. Win, win. There were also chances to play at the park for Andrew. Win again.

From the moment we brought home his new cleats and shin guards, Noah was pumped. He put them on and ran around the house "being a really good soccer player." However, I was afraid that when the real time came, he would be timid. Not so. He got to be on the same team as his good friend Cooper, and while they could be silly during (even little) breaks in the action, they were totally focused on that ball while it was in play. At first Noah had a hard time with his general coordination, and didn't get much more than a few kicks in. He said he would score goals with "his secret weapon Cooper," who scored a lot. Then one day Cooper was gone, and for some reason Noah was able to really step it up. He scored 5 goals that day! While that was his best game of the season, he was always right in there after that, and while he still tripped, he also sometimes scored. It was a blast seeing him be excited. I wonder how long I'll be able to scoop and hug my little athletes as they run off the field . . . Don't know, but it's pretty great.

Josh moved up to the next league (kindergarten league, the big time), and it was fun to see that the herd mentality was starting to disappear. Josh had some games where he'd get in there and score quite a bit, but for most of the season he declared himself to be a defensive specialist. Nobody asked him to, but he told me, "Will is really fast, so he can score a lot of goals, so I'll play defense." So, he kind of hung back, and did a pretty good job of getting in the way of the ball. He was excited about the games, and counted each goal as a team goal, so hey, why not? Josh is not exactly quiet when he makes remarks during a game, which can sometimes get chuckles from spectators. Once he went into the game after sitting out for a few minutes and started playing really well. People started cheering for him and he yelled, "It must be all of those crackers that I just ate!" 

I had a hard time, as always, getting quality photos of the action, but here's a little taste . . .

Warming up for the big game - Noah is the one on the far left.

I told Noah I was going to take his picture and he did this action pose.

This shot is of the kids lining up for kickoff. I think it's hilarious that this is the  approach they take . Noah is the shirt-eater, and his friend Cooper is in the middle.

Josh is the one throwing in the ball.

Josh takes kick-off a little more seriously. His friend Ben is kicking, Josh is to the right.

Josh wanted me to take a picture of him being the soccer ball.

This is Noah, actually playing in the game. What his teammates are doing is hilarious to me.

There goes Noah!

Josh's team name was the Green Dragons, so for the last game (which was close to Halloween), they got green dragon face paint. Here's the team, roaring their intimidating roar. Josh emailed this picture to his teacher and said,

"I scared the other team. The other team ran away like crazy. They didn't play for the whole game. I am just kidding. We actually played. It was fun." I enjoyed his little sense of humor with that.

For the second year Gary is the assistant coach to Ben's dad, Spencer. The kid with his arm around Josh is Tanner, and next to him is Brooke. Brooke is in our ward, and Tanner is now in Josh's kindergarten class. This is the second year being on this team for most of these kids, and it's really cute to watch how they have become friends and learned so much about soccer together.

Native Americans Don't Wear Their Shirts

My cheek was cuddled up against Andrew's, as I gave my chubby little toddler one last hug before leaving him to nap. Right as I was giving a little sigh of contentment I heard Noah say, "Native Americans don't wear their shirts." Okay. Amusing to me because it's a lovely mix of a PC term and a racial stereotype. And also assuming they have shirts that they don't wear. Anyway, when I left Andrew's room, I found Noah's statement was part of a whole thing they were doing. This.

Yep. They declared themselves to be Native Americans.

Josh wanted a picture of himself shooting his bow and arrow.

Josh was really jealous that Noah had time to give himself a collar before I caught them. He was a bit upset  I wouldn't let him add one. I mean, it does look pretty great.

In response to a question, I guess I forgot to say this is permanent marker. Big shout out to Mary Kay Deep Cleanser for the great work in getting it off.

No Tricks, All Treats

Recommendation: If you are going to have a baby right before Halloween, try to do it 8 days before Halloween, instead of 4. I actually had fun this year, unlike two years ago when I was up all night about to cry. So, about the fun year . . .

 It was a gorgeous day, the kids were excited out of their minds, and I actually put on makeup and dried my hair to go to the store earlier in the day, so I went out trick or treating for a little bit. Dressed! (Not in a costume, but for a week post-baby getting dressed is like a costume.) I love watching the kids be excited, and seeing neighbors while we are out and about. As a bonus we had a cute little kitty that was sleeping cozily in our arms we got to introduce to a few people. Josh was determined to be the turbo-trick-or-treater, so we had to remind him often to wait for us, which he was willing to do when he realized what he was doing. He was really in the Halloween zone. Andrew was really hard to get out the door. He was having a tantrum/meltdown, so getting him a costume was a battle, getting shoes on him was almost a whole war, getting him outside required bribery . . . and then he realized what he got to do. Happiness came quickly. I went home after a block and a half, and Gary stayed with the boys a little longer. In the end Andrew was trying to get Gary to hit a few more houses. So cute. This is the Halloween I love, the Halloween that is for kids. Some little boys that dream for months about being ninjas and getting candy. Simple. Awesome.

This year we got our pumpkins from Farmer Grandpa. The kids got to see the pumpkins grow whenever they visited, but then got a bunch to have at our house. Here they are carving them. Gary let the kids tell him what they wanted, and they got to approve the design on a drawing before the actual carving.

Where was Andrew during the pumpkin carving? Right here on the couch, and since this was his only nap, that explains the hard time he had later. Poor kid, when he turned his head it was drenched in sweat from having his face shoved into a leather couch.

The kitten was cute, but tired. Couldn't get the perfect photo.

The binkie saved the day.

The kids were so excited about their Jack O' Lanterns, we had to get a photo of how they looked all lit up. By the way, putting up the spider web is a great memory. It was about a week before Lissy was born, and I was miserable. I decided I'd clean the fridge that day. But then Noah started asking to decorate for Halloween. I almost said no, because of the fridge, and then I thought, "What am I doing?" And got out the decorations. It was a beautiful day, my boys were hilarious, and it was just perfect. As we put in the spiders they said things like, "Ah, one of them bit me, now I have spider sense!" Andrew put on a dinosaur costume and walked around roaring at us. Fridge, shmidge.

Counterfeiters, Rockstars, and Divers . . . and Their Mom

How is it that one second you wonder if you will ever get married and have children, and the next you find yourself in the middle of the night with a wiggly newborn in one arm and a tall stack of laundry in the other trying to maneuver yourself onto the bottom bunk to listen to your 3 year old tell you about his nightmare? At that moment I was struck by just how different my life is now than it was 6 or 7 years ago. I mean, I'm kind of into this mom thing pretty deep by now. Crazy. The nightmare was about pandas and lava, by the way, and giving him a kiss was a pretty difficult task. But I did it.

When Lissy was about a week old Noah remarked, "Lissy doesn't even have her peepee yet." (Um, yeah, new things to talk about with a girl around . . . )

Josh found a sweet $120 Star Wars Lego set in the paper. Gary told him it was pretty expensive, and Josh got all exasperated with him. "Dad, you need to learn to make those green dollars," he said, "They're made out of paper!"

A while back I went to Walmart with my kids on a really windy day. I tried to prep them for it. "Okay guys," I said, "I'm going to get a cart, and you have to sit in it really quickly so I can run us all into the store as fast as we can. It's too windy to mess around." Noah chimed in with his idea. "Or, we could just get in the wind and fly to Walmart." "The wind is blowing the wrong way, Noah," Josh said, "We would just go to Jiffy Lube." Yep, that's my children. Josh wasn't concerned about the flying idea, but the fact the wind was blowing the wrong way.

Tonight Josh and Noah decided that if they didn't button their pajama tops they looked like rock stars. So, they kept them unbuttoned as they got ready for bed, and stopped every now and then to rock out and sing, "Na, na, na, na, na, na . . .," metal style.

My boys like to say, "I believe I can fly!" Then jump off of stuff. They recently changed it to, "I believe I can fly . . . scuba dive!" Yeah, that involves jumping off of stuff face first. So far it's been onto beds, but the whole thing is a little scary, especially when I hear Andrew yell, "Scuba dive!" A little scary, but also a little funny when they coordinate jumping off at the same time. Hopefully this is not indicative of a cliff-diving future . . .

It's Official - Andrew is Two

Gary and I chuckle at Andrew every day. He is just so cute. He literally bounces everywhere he goes. He's still in the 98th percentile in weight but only around the 60th in height, so he remains a big boy, and all that chub is just so huggable. I was afraid he'd never give me "huggies" again after we turned his life upside down with a new baby, but the hugs are coming back, along with a whole slew of "I can because I'm two" traits. He's definitely talking a whole lot more, and loves to listen to longer books. He sings all the time, even if he doesn't know all the words. Just turn on the radio, he'll sing along. He recently had his second birthday (two days after I got home from the hospital), and we tried our best to make it fun despite the nuttiness. Here's all about Andrew . . .

This kid is ridiculously strong. Gary was lifting the shovel up and down, and Andrew was hanging on by himself. For a very, very long time. He's been able to hang like this since he was really young.

We took this picture because after eating his cookie, Andrew had the perfect Hilterstache.  His smile is too  cute for it to show up here, though.

So relaxing . . .

The terrible twos can be terribly funny sometimes. Andrew has been stripping off his jammies after we leave the room at night. On the night of this picture, we left him snugly tucked in, and went back a couple of hours later to find this. Gary was thinking Centaur or Merman.

Opening his present from Grandma S.

He loved it and immediately began playing (yeah, wearing Noah's shoes.)

My incredible cake decorating . . . Actually, Andrew LOVED it. Couldn't leave it alone from the second he saw it. So, that's what matters. Plus, it was to die for delicious. Win win.

What to do when suddenly you find yourself as the center of attention? Awkward.

Don't worry about the celebrations, go straight for the dinosaurs.

Josh was there to support Andrew with his candle blowing needs.

OK, so 3 boys, 3 dinosaurs, you can imagine what happened after the candles were blown out.  Wait, did you also imagine that they used the dinosaurs as forks? Yep, that happened, too.

He had to stand on his tiptoes to get into his present. Pretty awesome.

Dinosaur train! He loved it. He actually is saying, "Oh!" They all played with it immediately, of course. He calls it "Ductor." (Conductor)

Andrew is super tight with his awesome brother Josh who is a willing horsie for Andrew's "rides." 

Just yesterday as I was watching Andrew I said to Gary, "Nobody else gets to be Andrew's parents. Just us. We get to have Andrew as our boy. How lucky is that?" Very lucky! We love you, Andrew!