I Am A Bad Blogger

There may be a few reasons for my lack of blogging:

1.  There is nothing going on to report on;
2.  I am too busy/stressed to write up posts:
3.  My brain doesn't funtion;
4.  A combination of 1, 2, and 3.

Remember my last post, "Jonathan Tumbles A Lot?"  Well, he's tumbling even more now.  We signed him up for gymnastics.  So once a week, he's in gymnastics class, running, tripping and falling - ALL without causing me a heart attack.  It must be so nice for him to run all out without hearing me say, "be careful!," "slow down!," "stop doing that!"

Carena is busy with viola, piano, and horseback riding.  She did wonderfully in her piano recital playing, "You Raise Me Up." She had an awesome orchestra concert.  Horseback riding goes fairly well - she's had a change of instructors and another change coming up - we're going to be leasing a horse, so I'll be Carena's riding instructor!  YAY!  (Plus I'll get to ride as well!).

Colt lives for figuring out puzzles and games.  He loves his iPod Touch.  The other day it started behaving oddly.  Colt was fearful that all of his hard work in some of his games would be erased.  A trip to the Apple store confirmed it a hardware problem and since it was still under warranty, he got a new iPod.  Best part - all of his games were saved.  Colt plays the violin and had a lovely concert a few weeks ago.  He is also active in the scouting program and recently got a few awards.

We're all gearing up for Christmas.  We won't be traveling this year for it.  That's both good and bad.  Good because I feel I've traveled a lot this year and it's wearing me down a bit.  Bad because we will miss our families terribly.

Sorry no pictures to make reading all that stuff above worth the effort.  Like I said, I'm a bad blogger.

Jonathan Tumbles A Lot

When Jonathan was one day shy of his second birthday he fell down the steps at the lake house.  Not all the way down, but enough to make him cry a lot.  And since I wasn't right there to see what happened, I don't know how bad the fall really was.  But then he started throwing up.  And I started to worry.  Because head injury + throwing up = something bad.  So, he got a ride in an ambulance and a CT scan.  Turns out he was fine and that too much crying might cause throwing up.

Another time Jonathan decided to jump out of the car.  He didn't land the way he wanted - instead he slipped, and knocked his head on the asphalt causing a big gash in his head.  He cried for a bit, he bled for a while, and then he started to nod off to sleep.  Head injury + sleepiness = bad news!  I took him into urgent care.  No stitches were needed and he checked out fine.  He was just sleepy because crying makes you sleepy.

When Jonathan runs through the house we often hear a loud thumping and slapping sound - that's the sound of Jonathan tripping and going splat on the floor.

The other day Jonathan was running from the car into the house and tripped over the step.  SPLAT.

Last week I got a call from the school nurse.  Jonathan had fallen in P.E. class and would need some stitches.  He got bumped during class and SPLAT.  He needed three stitches in his chin.

These are just a few of his tumbling experiences.  I think there are many more to come.  This child loves to run and jump and bound around.  I think it's causing me daily miniature heart attacks. 

Jonathan's Talk

We got a call this morning, not too long before heading to church, asking if Jonathan could give a talk in Primary.  The topic was keeping the sabbath day holy.  This was very last minute.  So, Jonathan and I sat down together and talked about the sabbath day.  I wrote down Jonathan's thoughts so that he could deliver them during Primary time at church.  Here is his talk:

            We can keep the sabbath day holy by going to church and reading the scriptures and The Friend.  I   sometimes watch church shows.  Today I made a card for my aunt who is sick.  That is a good thing to do on Sundays.  In the car on the way to church we listen to Primary songs.  Sometimes we play games as a family.

     Keeping the sabbath day holy makes me feel calm and close to Heavenly Father.  I think about Heavenly Father and Jesus a lot on Sundays.  Sundays are different.  I love Sundays.

     I have a testimony of Jesus.  I am glad I can come to church.  Going to Primary and singing songs are my favorite part of Sunday.

 Jonathan has become more and more confident in reading and read portions of the talk himself.  I was most impressed with Jonathan stating "Sundays are different."  Even as a little guy he feels the difference.

A Different Kind of Summer - Part 1

As usual, the kids and I headed to Pennsylvania as soon as school let out.  As usual, we stayed at my parent's place - the hundred acre woods.

But what was very different this year was that my parents were not there.  They are in South Carolina with my sister.

So, the children and I were left to our own devices in the middle of the sticks.  The nearest hospital and urgent care were 35 minutes away.  Church was 45 minutes away.  The grocery store was 20 minutes.  The big grocery store and WalMart were 40 minutes away.  It was quite the adjustment to say the least.

The first week was very rough due to me being sick.  All alone with three kids in the woods and being sick was a little intimidating.  However, my two dear aunts came to our rescue and provided food and help (including a ride to urgent care for me).

What else was intimidating was being in charge of all of that property, 9 chickens, and a big house.  But, we survived and thrived.  And it turned out to be a wonderful summer, one where I felt happy and motivated, free and unencumbered.  A summer where I felt at home and gained the knowledge of who I am.  No longer do I wonder if I could hack it in the woods.  No longer do I wonder if I truly like farm work.  No longer do I wonder if I can stand on my own.  I can.  And I did.  And I feel empowered having that knowledge about myself.

More to come of our Pennsylvania adventures!

Mr. Patriotic

Pennsylvania Pics

Country Road, Take Me Home, To The Place, I Belong.

First campfire of the season

Island hoppers

A minute before Jonathan fell in.

Shape Up!

On the way home from the grocery story today, the kids were acting up.  Carena was pestering Jonathan, Jonathan was yelling at and trying to hit Carena, and Colt was describing his farts.  I had had enough and said, rather firmly, "Once we get home, you're all going to go to bed early if you don't shape up!"

Silence.

The silence was broken with Jonathan piping up and saying, "I've got dibs on being a circle!"

Carrie's Quilt

My sweet sister is battling advanced ovarian cancer.  A month ago she was given the diagnosis.  A few days after that she was rushed to the hospital (in South Carolina) and has been there since.  I had the opportunity to visit her in the hospital a few weeks ago.  I treasure that time with her, despite the circumstances.  But now that I'm back in Arizona, being thousands of miles away from her makes me very anxious.  I am not able to concentrate nor am I able to do much of anything but think of her.  But, I knew I wanted to do something for her, since I couldn't be right next to her holding her hand.  I decided to make a quilt for her - a healing, comforting, full-of-love quilt.  I found the idea for the quilt here.  The idea behind the quilt is this:

"Framing the tree is a white border representing the “fence” that keeps the atmosphere around the tree peaceful. Interlocking leaves are quilted in the white border. The next 2 borders are asymmetrical and represent the influences in our lives. The red is for the anger we experience sometimes in our life. The black for the dark periods we may experience.

Two opposing corners have pinwheels that represent the out of control feelings we have sometimes have, and the other 2 corners are the rigid “black and white” views that we encounter. The goal of the Serenity Tree wall hanging is to have you focus on leaving the bad influences outside of yourself and go into the peaceful, quiet, serene garden and sit under your Serenity Tree and rejuvenate your soul."

I worked on the quilt while listening to uplifting, healing and soothing music.  I meditated and prayed and I thought of her.  I pictured her healthy.  I tried to immerse my love and all my good healing energy into the quilt.

First Phone Call

Today Jonathan got his first phone call from a friend - just calling to chat! It was super cute to watch Jonathan talking and listening. There were a lot of "whats" from Jonathan. After, I asked Jonathan what they talked about. His reply "Super cool stuff you wouldn't understand."

Chatty

Jonathan: Colt, sometimes you talk too much.
Colt: Believe me, I don't talk as much as some people.

I beg to differ, Colt. This past week Colt has been super chatty. To the point that every once in a while I have to tell him to not talk to me for a little bit (I know, I'm an awful mother). He'll comply for 3 minutes or so. Even Chris has noticed the uptake on Colt's chattiness.

Jonathan just told me, "sometimes I fall asleep when Colt is talking."

In Threes

Jonathan has:

1. the fever/cough junk that's going around
2. strep throat
3. pneumonia

Thankfully we're getting it all figured out and he will be on some new medication that will knock the strep and pneumonia out. So, fingers crossed that in a few days he's a new boy!

It's Spring Break

We have been shut-ins going on almost 2 weeks now. Jonathan has been sick. Sick sick. So we've stayed close to home. No Spring Break to speak of. For a moment I felt sorry for my children and then I didn't. Because I realized that even though we don't have tons to do and even though we're not running here and there, everyone is fine with that, especially considering the reason we're staying home is to take care of Jonathan. Now that we haven't done anything great and exciting for a while, trips to CVS are super fun and get us all excited. Not only that, but doing small fun things around the house is pretty dang fun too.

As for Jonathan - he's on day 12 with a fever and bad cough. Carena had the same thing but it only lasted a week. After 10 days of Jonathan being so sick I took him to Urgent Care. Turns out he has strep throat on top of this other junk. Can you imagine having a hacking terrible cough on top of strep? When he coughs, he ends up crying because it hurts so much. He's on antibiotics, but the fever persists. He'll be heading to the doctor's tomorrow to figure out what's going on.

Despite it all, we've had moments of fun and have made some memories. On Sunday night we got all jazzed to watch the season finale of Finding Bigfoot - airing at 10 pm. We decided to have a bigfoot party. We made bigfoot cookies, a bigfoot mask and sasquatch smoothies (they were gross). We sat down to watch and found to our dismay that the finale aired an hour earlier! Grrrrr. We watched a rerun instead (Jonathan cried).

Jonathan's Bigfoot mask

Snuggle time with Pirta

Since Jonathan was a baby, he has always LOVED flowers. I have pictures of him holding tightly to a single little flower in his chubby not-quite one-year old hand. When thinking of ways to cheer him up recently I remembered this about him and asked Chris to bring some flowers home for Jonathan after work one day. When Jonathan saw the flowers and learned they were for him, his face lit up. He helped arrange the flowers and then he ran to get his flower identification book and started looking through it to find what kinds of flowers were in his bouquet. Such a simple thing like flowers brought him such pleasure and happiness.

And that has been our Spring Break so far. It doesn't sound like so much fun, but honestly, it's been alright. No one has complained one little bit about being bored or not doing anything "fun." We're happy being together and just taking it easy.

Another Colt Classic

A preview to a movie came on the other day and the question was posed, "If you could change your fate would you?"

Colt looked at me and said, "That's a really good question."

He thought for a moment.

"But I like my feet the way they are."

Grand Canyon

There is nothing like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Pictures are beautiful, but they don't give you that overwhelming feeling of immenseness and vastness.

This past weekend we took a quick trip up to Flagstaff and then on to the Grand Canyon. My parents are in town. They had never been. It was a wonderful trip. Pictures don't do justice. You need to be there.

Things Colt Says

These are always priceless.

1. Colt: I'm not in love but Steve Nash is awesome!

2. My dad, whenever talking about World War II, always says, "WWII, The Big One." Little did we know that Colt has picked up on it as well. Today, Colt was talking to my dad about a video game and Colt says, "It reminds me of World War II, The Big One." Loved it.

A Conversation

Me: Jonathan, what do you do at recess?
Jonathan: I play with my friends.
Me: What kinds of things do you do?
Jonathan: We play "Cops and Roberts."