Month: May 2009

Trumans Low Immune System appears to be getting better and better.

This year has been a record setting year for us. We had fewer colds than we’ve had in along time. Unfortunatley, we did still have a few, and at recent visit, our pediatrician noticed that his adnoids have grown back again, causing more and more colds and sinus and ear infections. *we’ll be seeing our ENT later in June to talk about removing them again.

With one of his most recent infections, we got a prescription late in the night, due to some mixups with the pharmacy and Dr.’s office. When the meds finally arrived, we were annoyed to see on his bottle of liquid, with the dosage information listed as: Take one tablet morning and evening. As Toph said, ‘How many tablespoons is a tablet?’

While Tru and I waited for the medicine problems to be worked out, it was late into the evening. Like 11:45PM. I wrapped him up in my rainbow brite blanket from when I was younger, and began to tell him stories about me being little. This worked for awhile, but when Toph still was not back, we began to google vintage Sesame Street Clips. He really liked them, and I found a few (or actually alot) of my favorites, with this distraction, we were able to make it until Toph made it back and meds were all figured out.

Hope they bring back some pleasant memories for you too.
How Crayons are made:

fish

llama

same voicw

dpll house

super guy

wet paint

beginning middle end

Three

aerobics:

It’s amazing how this just transports me back to when I was six. Watching TV, mommy can i have grilled cheese sandwich please?

Tucker recently brought home his writing journal from school.

Twice a week, he writes and draws pictures in this book. He recently finished it. It was AMAZING to see the progress he has made this year in Kindergarten. It was fun to see his progress, but most of all, it was fun to get a peek inside his brain to see the things he felt were important enough to include in his journal.

A few of my faves:

Translation: Can you buy me a Robosapien? I heart Robosapien and Ms. Mynti

Translation: Me and Truman were saving the day again.

Translation: I am an astronaut, I am going to space, I will be there forever, now go!

I know I say it often, but I love it.

Undy Man.

He seems to show up at the moments when his mother is always shocked to see him.

Like when she is having a Relief Society board meeting with 10 women in our living room.

Or the when the bishops wife just happens to stop by for a quick visit.

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I am looking forward to the return of the red ranger. And that is saying something.

Sigh.

I freely admit that I am out numbered, because of this, I don’t go to our neighborhood park as frequently as I would like to. You see it is so big, children get ‘lost’ easily. So it is a big deal when we finally make it over to the big park. (this was only our second trip since Elliots birth)

On this day we headed to the park, I began to think of the funny things we do and wanted to document it, as so many of my memories at our current home, have to do with this park.

Getting to the park is half the fun. The choice of vehicles to get there, or walking, is always a debate.
Today Tucker is on the big wheels

And Tru on his Scooter.

And Elliot rode in the stroller,

Now, we can’t just all have a leisurely ride to the park, we have well established rules and routines.
On the way their Truman gets to ‘lead’. At our house, leading is the coveted position…That’s why we have rules and routines.
And he rides in front the whole way, and whenever he gets to a big crack, he gets off his scooter and does this:

To which we all have to stop, and count to ten, so Truman can zoom off, to the next crack.

Finally we reach the park. On this day, the boys loved playing together, and stayed close to each other. No worries of loosing either one of them.

On the way home, it’s Tuckers turn to lead. No games or silly business for him. He’s all about speed.

He is suprisingly fast on his big wheels. I really think he can get going like 5 mph on it. He’s wicked crazy fast. What do you say Toph, do you think it’s that fast? So he zooms ahead of us, waiting at each ‘bend’ in our path for us to catch up, so he can leave us in the dust. If he had his way he’d ride home with out us. But we have our rules.

It’s good to have a park day again. Already, I’m looking forward to another one.

Currently our boys have over 15 collections (I think), their interest changes from week to week.

Here is one that drives me CRAZY.

Air soft gun pellets. The ‘big boys’ of the neighborhood play games through all the neighbors yards with their guns. So in our soil we have thousands of these babies.
And they were one of the first collections the boys started. The collection currently resides inside of Trumans trike seat storage cubby.

Luckily for me, Truman whipes out once a week on his bike. He is always fine, but the pellets are mostly lost, so the collection starts afresh about weekly and somehow the collection continues to grow.

Even though they have been banned from the house, everyonce in awhile, they still make their way into the house.

That’s why I hate ’em.

But I love that the boys spend hours scavenging the neighborhood trying to find them, with all the other neighborhood children. Please no one tell them, they can buy a big container of pellets at the dollar store. That WOULD ruin their fun.

Is getting bigger.

It can be summed up in these pictures (sorry, I couldn’t choose just one) and two words: RICE CEREAL.

As the chicks got a little bigger, we decided to introduce them to the backyard, in little bits of time,

I have been surprised by how much they like to be with people. They all three stick together when they begin to ‘wander’, but they tend to roam TOWARDS the children.

And they’ve begun to perch,

Look at Christopher, he’s a proud papa of children and chickens. 🙂

Toph is a hard worker. Really hard. He has his job, and then also a side job.

Once a year his side job holds a conference, and he usually attends, documents it for the website, then returns home. BUT this year, the conference was in SLC. He had to attend, and he happened to get a hotel room, with 2 queen beds. So, there was plenty of room for all of us, and we couldn’t help but come up and join him.

It was our first vacation with the 5 of us. And I have forgotten how hard it is to travel with a baby. Elliot had more stuff then the other 4 of us. 🙂

So while Papa was hard at work, we spent 3 days at the pool. Yep, that’s what I said. We ate and swam. Literally.

The moment we got there, Toph helped us get checked into the room, and then the boys changed into their suits, and off to the pool we went.

And we were water logged after that for the next few days.

We did take a few moments not in the pool to:
Eat at Trumans favorite restaurant, Olive Garden,

And we were reminded of a serious perk of Hotel staying: Sleeping in and watching cartoons on your bed in your jammies.

But mostly all we did was hang out at the pool, Toph would sneak in between sessions, say Hi, and take a few pics, here are a few of my favorite:

Elliot was a real champ. He slept in his stroller, and then I’d swim with boys. He’d wake up, I’d feed him, then he’d go for a little dip. I am still amazed by his easy going come what may attitude.

One day for lunch, I had my first real public ‘I am the mom of three very busy children’ moment. I know, it really should have come by now…but it hadn’t.
Toph had a break for lunch, and wanted to head to a restaurant that we thought was real close, we started to walk,

but after walking a few BIG blocks, the boys were tired, and Toph realized the restaurant was not where we thought it was.

The boys had been swimming and were already tired. This walk kind of did them in. So we skipped into the first restaurant that we saw. It happened to be a upscale burger place. We got seated, and soon realized there were no other children. In fact they didn’t really have a kids menu. And it was packed with business men in suits.
The kids were tired and hungry, so we decided just to stay there, rather than risk a breakdown.

We ordered our food quickly, and then to distract the children, Toph found some youtube videos on his Blackberry, which was nice.

We didn’t realize that they make the burgers fresh (which normally we would have loved), but it was a little bit longer than expected. So as soon as the food arrived, Toph ate very quickly, then had to race back to the conference.

It was then that the I am the mom of three children moment occurred. Now granted, my children were being very well behaved for the circumstances. They were tired. They were out of their normal surroundings. I was proud of them for the good children they were being. But they still were children, and not adult men in business suits. So we stuck out like a sore thumb, especially when we accidentally knocked our drinks over 4 times. And I had Elliot asleep in my arms, and was trying to take care of the mess with my one free arm. I noticed many people watching us and looking at us, and it was then that I realized, I AM SUPER OUTNUMBERED, and even with good behaved children, we were still making commotion, and making the noise that comes when children are having a good time.

As I walked back to the hotel with a child holding each hand and Elliot strapped to the front or me, I was grateful for that experience, and grateful for my three children. Often times I am an onlooker to others, who might feel like a mother surrounded by business men. At the restaurant I never felt really uncomfortable, or ashamed, but just different. It has been awhile since I have felt like that, and it was a good reminder to me that we are all different, but yet we are children of God. And being different is okay, if we are doing the things we should be doing.

So I have realized yet again, how the little moments in life add up to be the big moments, and hope I am making the most of the little ones.

I’ve heard an Ancient Chinese Proverb that goes something like…”Give a man a fish and you feed him for the day, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”.

Proverbally speaking, What parent doesn’t want to teach their children to fish, so he can be fed for life?

We thought it would be a great FHE Lesson, so after practicing casting off our back patio for a few days, Toph got his fishing license, and off we went to a pond just 5 minutes from our house, to help the boys to learn to fish.

It started out great:

But the inevitable soon happened.
SPLASH!
First Tuck, not to bad, just his feet.

Then another bigger SPLASH!
This time it was Tru, trying to get some ‘glitter’ (litter) from the pond,

He got alot more wet, and was really sad about it, but luckily for us, we’d brought extra sweaters, and soon enough we were back in business,

The boys spent alot of time casting, and reeling in.
They caught many leaves, and seeweedy grassy stuff. But no fish. I thought the boys might be a little bummed out, after not catching anything. I was wrong.
They were easily distracted by the fun park, just down the hill,

They had a great time with their papa,

Discovering that all three of them can fit down one of those little slides.

Who would have thunk it.

As for Eli and I? We chilled from the sidelines, him in the bjorn.

A great Monday night, even if we didn’t teach the boys to catch a fish.

Tucker is an entrepreneur, at the ripe old age of 6.

Anyone who knows Tucker, knows he likes to earn money. He often does a few extra chores around the house, to save up his money for a new toy, or book, or whatever it may be.

But recently, he’s figured out a new way to earn money.

He’s started a newspaper. Yep. That’s what I said, and it gets even better. Because you see, he’s hired Truman as a reporter, Truman tells him what is going on, and Tucker writes about it.

Then he copies his word from page to page to page, and now is selling the papers, at the price of one dollar a piece.

In case you’re wondering what his papers look like, here’s a peek:

Interpretation:
Tucker and Truman are the best brothers
Christmas is the best.
Have you ever noticed that the clouds are always moving?
Aliens are from Mars.

In many ways I am proud of him. The only newspapers I dreamed about as a kid, had something to do with this:

Maybe I should enroll Tucker in Singing and Dancing Lessons, so he can sell his papes’ this way?
🙂