My Helper Noah

Noah has been such a great helper to me this week. When we took our trip to D.C., I switched the seating around in the car. Ammon and Noah traded places, which put Ammon in the back corner and Noah right behind me. That makes it harder to buckle Ammon it, but it made a world of difference with traveling. Noah played with Micah, fed him Cheerios, passed snack back to his brothers. I was so grateful for him!

So the other night, I was in a dinner frenzy. It was getting lately and I hadn't started making dinner, but Micah was starving and it dawned on me to just see if Noah could feed Micah. He was quite pleased with himself, and I was amazed at

how little mess there was and how well it worked out. Why have I never done that before? I hope I am not taking advantage of him, but you can see here again, it was bedtime and I had tried to actually nurse Micah while reading books to everyone, and that was just not working out, so I had Noah take over reading while I took Micah to feed in a dark quiet room and put him to bed. He actually reads to his brothers quite a bit on his own, but this was such a nice moment when I realized I don't always have to do everything for everyone. So this week is my grateful for Noah week.

Brave Moments--Washington D.C.

I kind of wish I could figure out how to make the pictures go in the right order....oh well, if I let that stop me, I'd never record anything here. So here is the story of a one day Washington D.C. trip from a small town Sugar City girl. Jeremy called Monday night to tell me that he was in DC for some medical meetings. He had thought about breaking away to come and see us, but it's a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive from where he was staying, and he would really rather see DC if we could just come and see him. At first I just laughed and kind of said "yeah right". Travis is gone, 4 small children, big big city that I have never ever been to, small town scared girl with lots of missing brain cells--you get the picture. But then I hung up and called a friend who acted like it's no big deal and she's done it lots of times (granted she has lived here almost 10 years), and I did want to see him and make it easier for him, too. So I called another friend, with my heart totally pounding out of my chest (I feel very pathetic--most other people are very capable, but I think I have some sort of a disorder), and she got her map and planned out an exit for me to take, and told me she was going to send her GPS with me and I could call her if I ever got lost. She must have really been shaking her head at me, but she can never know how grateful I am to her. Micah woke up at 5:30 to eat, and then didn't go back to sleep for his usual 2 more hours, which was sad to me, and I was convinced the day would be horrible. But I am proud to say, we made it right to our meeting point and met up with Jeremy with no problems, and saw quite a few very cool things together in downtown DC. It was very fun. If I were to change anything about the whole trip, I would have packed hats and gloves for my poor children, nursed Micah when I should have and while he was happy and larky, and either gotten back to the van sooner, or parked in a different spot to avoid the big parking ticket...

At first I was worried about Micah in the cold, but he seemed happy despite extreme lack of sleep even, so I thought he was probably fine. But we went into the Air and Space Museum for awhile, and had been there for probably an hour and had time to warm up, when we saw ourselves on this screen that shows how warm you body is. Like with me and Jeremy, our head and cores were bright red with red and blue spots throughout everywhere else. I couldn't help but notice that the kids' red spots were much smaller and less percentage of their bodies, and poor Micah's hands didn't even show as blue. When he finally broke down at the capital building and we had to hike a very long ways back to the van, I wrapped him in my coat and a blanket and carried him all the way back. My arms are actually very sore still from that. Noah and Kaden also took turns crying about their tired feet and cold fingers on the way back while they took turns riding in the stroller and holding Micah's carseat. We need to do more hiking to build up some endurance in this family...

Here are some of the last moments of happiness just before heading back to the van...

Below is an earlier picture as we walked by some of the very awesome looking museums. What an amazing place. We need to go when we have more time and aren't hoping to drive home the same day. As it was, we left at about 8:45 a.m. and got back home at 9:00 p.m. All 4 kiddos were completely konked out in the car so it took work to get them all in the house, but after that, bedtime was very smooth sailing. I think this was the American Indian Museum.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

Here is the aftermath. Noah apparently got up the next morning and got dressed for school, and was still tired. I found him passed out like this in the middle of the floor--not faking a bit. The good thing is that while I had worried that I traumatized them and Noah and Kaden wouldn't ever want to go to D.C again (which we are next month with Tara)--As soon as Noah's fingers were warmer, he only had positive things to say about it and was excited to tell his school class all about our adventures. So that means I am not the worst mom ever, right?

Micah's latest accomplishments

After a couple of weeks of intensive training, the little guy finally figured it out. Awhile ago he would climb up the stairs and I started to feel safe and let my guard down because he would book it up as fast as possible and if he wanted back down he would stand at the railing and yell for me, or me would lay on his stomach facing the stairs and reach his hand towards the stairs and not go near them. Then I started practicing the backwards thing with him, and when he finally seemed to catch on a little-- it got more scary. He would go down a stair or two and then sit back into thin air, thinking he had made it. Now as you can see, he's really checking what's underneath himself and making sure he's safe. Not that I can let my guard down now, but I see a future...

Pizza, poems, and passeys

This is documentation that I am influenced for the good from my friends. So thanks to those of you who may have reminded me to help my kids have fun in their childhood instead of spending all of my time worrying about messes and doing things perfectly. I don't know why it's hard for me to let my kids help with things like this--they did such a good job. But as they started I almost decided to hurry and do the cheese myself and then let them put stuff where I pointed to. But I took a deep breath, and gave them the fixings and walked away to fold laundry. I am proud of myself. There are so many things I can let them do and it would be fun for them and help me out in the long run, too! Here's to first steps...

How's this for a handsome comb-over after a kind of bad (but okay for the 90 seconds that it took to do it) haircut. Trav says he's going to have to fix it by almost shaving his head, but luckily I don't think he'll get time to do that before he goes TDY to Vegas on Saturday. Not that I am happy he's going. On the contrary, I had to do sacrament meeting by myself today with all 4 boys and was pretty stressed at the thoughts of tdy's and the 4 month deployment coming up. He's pretty nice to have around.

One night these 3 somehow all ended up with superman p.j.s on and they were pretty excited about it.

Just a funny kids who chuckles most of the day long every day. Life is pretty amusing to this guy. Mostly I just like to take pictures of him to look at him even when I am not looking at him.

How my new haircut is really looking. I don't love it, not even a little bit, which is kind of sad. But I guess it's not often I have gotten a haircut I really love. Hmm, what does that say about me? Mostly I posted this picture because it went well with the story of Noah's poem. He was upstairs playing with Kaden and Ammon and came down with a little poem that he said popped into his head while he was playing, so he wrote it down and came to read it to me--on Valentine's Day, no less. Here it is.

"I love my mom. She 's the greaTEST.

I really like her. A little better than the REST."

I thought it was very sweet. Gotta cling to those moments of love. Kaden came and gave me a big hug today out of the blue, and I said "Kaden, will you still come and give me lots of hugs when you are 20 years old" and he said "Yes, Mom, I will never stop hugging you". Phew.

Pure beauty

So I got my haircut a couple of days ago, after months of saying every single day how much I need to. When the nice lady finished she asked if I would like her to curl it just a little. I though this meant flip the ends up or under or something, and I am always up for prolonging someone playing with my hair. I love that. So I told her to go for it. Go for it she did. I don't know that I have ever had such curly hair, and thought I should document it for posterity. As I walked out to get my kids in the play area, Kaden got a big grin on his face and wouldn't stop staring, and Ammon just furrowed his eyebrows and touched it and said, "Wow, Mom, look at your hair".
Then when I got Noah from the bus stop after
school he said that he thought I was late and there was a new lady standing out there. He asked if I could please uncurl it. I just thought the whole thing was funny. I guess I am just not really the curly hair kind of gal. I was kind of embarrassed to come downstairs when I heard Trav come home that night, too. Oh well. How often does my hair actually look like I've done something with it, anyway. I should do better with that...

Hidden Talents

I knew Travis was pretty cool, and very good at a lot of things, but I had no idea that he could up and figure out how to make a desk and it to turn out this well. I LOVE it. We don't have any idea how to stain and finish things, but that's the next step. I just don't want to ruin it. I'm starting a list soon of what to have him make next.

Aaaah

Kaden lost his first tooth in the night time, on January 29th. He was my earliest to get teeth, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But he is BARELY five years old. I just don't feel ready for this. Oh well. Maybe you can see a grey tooth on top of his mouth. The dentist says this is usually caused by trauma, and seeing our family dynamics, thought it was a reasonable assumption. And Trav and I just smile, knowing that Kaden will be the one to knock all of his teeth out, get all of the stitches and break a few bones. . . I hope I am not cursing myself...