Escaping Winter

Winter's been fun.  Lots of sledding, lots of snow forts and snow ball fights, lots of shoveling (that became not so fun) but we have decided we are done with winter.  The kids have started riding their bikes and wearing shorts (yes, outside) and are pretty much ignoring the fact that it's still below freezing.  We've signed up for soccer (Bella and Christian) and baseball (Benjamin) and we've booked our trip to Utah for spring break.  We are ready!! :)

In the meantime, I got to escape the cold for a while with a trip to Miraval Resort, in Tuscon Arizona.  That was heaven.  My mother and I spent a girls' weekend there and I knew I was in the right place when the plane landed and I saw that the guy waving the plane in was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts.  Between the massages, the yoga classes, the horseback riding, lounging by the pool, and the fabulous food (all in 75 degree weather), I was rejuvenated and ready to face winter for a few more months.

This is me with my horse Elvis:

Then to further escape the cold, Kelly and I took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge.  It looked so fun on-line and I'd heard great things about it, but I have to be honest, my initial reaction when I saw the place from the inside was, "Ack!  So many people all in the same little pool!"  It was shoulder to shoulder with strangers in the water and I'm a bit of a germ-o-phobe so it took some mental effort to get me into the water with so many strange, large, hairy men and all those children who I knew weren't taking potty breaks.  But I just looked at my kids and how happy they were and how much fun they were having swimming and sliding and splashing and in the end I had a great time too.  When we weren't swimming we were running around playing Magic Quest - their in-house electronic game where you can wave a wand at various pictures and statues in the place to solve mysteries.  Benjamin loved it most of all.  I took Christian to a room with toys and books and crafts when he got tired of running up and down the stairs chasing after the big kids.  There was a girl working in there that read him books in all sorts of crazy voices and he had a blast.  He asked her to read the same ones over and over again and she did it every time.  So cute.

Her face says it all, doesn't it?  I just love that smile.

Christian's preschool had a field trip to a bakery which allowed each kid to decorate their own cake.  He loved that.  I was surprised by how conservative he was with it.  I expected him to douse it in as much sugar as possible, as Bella had when she'd done the same field trip.  Christian, however, treated it like a careful work of art.  He carefully placed the sugar decorations evenly around the circumference of the cake and the dotted icing in symmetrical patterns in the empty spaces. I couldn't have done a better job.

He also went on a trip to the fire station with his friends.  He loved sitting in the fire trucks and seeing all the equipment in the ambulance.  His favorite part was when the fireman put on his full fire gear and showed them how they talk through the mask when they're in smoke and how they wear a strong helmet to protect themselves.  The fireman got on all fours and let the kids bang on his helmet to show that it keeps him safe.  Christian and Bella (who also came along) loved the idea of being given permission to bang on a grown-up's head.  They took full advantage.  He may have regretted that move later!

Christian has loved preschool and has been awesome in his letter learning at home.  He can write his full name now without any help and he knows all his letters upper and lower case through T.  We are on U right now.  So amazing how quickly he's learned them once he decided that he wanted to.

Isabella and Benjamin have been taking an acting class these last few months that they've really enjoyed.  The last day of class involved them putting on the play Tangled (Rapunzel).  Benjamin was Flynn Ryder and Bella was Pascal.  Bella loved the play until she discovered she'd have to wear a costume and she hated the costume her teacher had.  Then it was a battle to even get her to go on stage. She thwarted our costume efforts and wore her cowgirl boots and some tights.  I talked to her about how this isn't a fashion show; it's theater and you wear what your part requires.  In the end, though, I threatened to take away screen time for a month if she didn't at least wear the hat.  She looked nothing like a chameleon but at least she wore the hat.  They both did a great job, Benjamin especially.  He learned all his lines so quickly and was the only one who didn't need a cue from off-stage at some point during the play.

That same day, one hour later, Benjamin had his spring piano recital.  When I'd picked him up from school that afternoon, he'd complained he had a sore throat.  A kid in his class had strep a few days earlier, so I worried when he told me that.  His throat did look really red, but not the classic strep look, and he didn't have a fever, so I told him to go to bed and rest and I'd wake him in time for the play.  He was sound asleep when it came time to leave.  I wouldn't have woken him if it had just been the recital.  I would have just texted his teacher and told her we weren't coming, but you can't perform Tangled without Flynn Rider!  So he went to the play feeling miserable.  We said a prayer together that he'd feel strong and be able to do well.  He did great and felt up to going to his recital too.  During the recital, however, as he waited for his turn, he started to fade again.  He crawled into my lap at one point and curled up - not easy since he's nearly as tall as I am.  When his turn came I was impressed that he did as well as he did given how lousy he felt.  He only messed up slightly on the second piece but I think it's because he never practiced that piece with the accompaniment at home.  Not everyone has a $2,000 Clavinova at home!  It was hard to get used to playing with it when you only do it once a week at your teacher's house and then only for the last 2 weeks.  Otherwise, I was so proud of him.  All he cared about, though, was going to bed.  He went straight to sleep, still fully clothed the moment we came home.  Poor boy.

Christian turns 3 and a Half

Birthdays and Half-Birthdays are big business at our house.  This past week was Christian's 3 and a Half birthday.  On Friday - Valentine's Day to be exact.  Pretty much completely eclipsed Valentine's Day for us.  Christian was counting down the days starting two weeks prior.  He could hardly sleep the night before the big day.  It was really cute.

On the Tuesday prior he got to bring in treats to preschool in honor of his 1/2 birthday and everyone got to sing to him.  He loved that.

On Friday, his actual half birthday, he woke up to presents and more singing.  He wanted to wear his birthday crown from preschool again and was so excited.  He also got to pick the breakfast that morning and he picked cream of wheat with pink food coloring in honor of Valentine's day.

Then we went to a friend's house for a play-date/party complete with heart shaped brownies and goody bags.

Then he got to pick the lunch and he chose to go to Costco for pizza.  That kid loves spicy pepperoni.

Before we had to pick Benjamin up from school, he wanted to do a fashion show. Yes, the girl clothes fetish continues.  He handed me Captain Hook's spy glass and told me to use it as a microphone as I announce the models.  Then he and Bella strutted down the catwalk in outfit after outfit, complete with gaudy eye-shadow and lipstick. I tried to be the paparazzi, but he didn't want any flash photography for the safety of the models.  He finally agreed to one photo at the end if he could have his Hook sword in the picture and if he didn't have to look at the camera.  Spoiled Diva.

Then we picked Benjamin up and Christian requested that we go to Bounce It Up, an indoor play place with inflatables and arcades.  He loves it there.  All my kids love it there. What's not to love?  All the arcades and games are free once you've paid entrance so they just run all over the place all afternoon and leave exhausted and happy.

Then he chose Mac'n Cheese and leftover pizza for dinner.

Pretty much a 3 and a half year old's dream day.  He had a great day and so did we.  Love that adorable boy!

When Life Hands You Pancakes....

It was National Pancake Day a couple weeks ago...or so I thought.  The February issue of a local magazine published that IHOP was offering free pancakes on February 5.  We took advantage of this offer last year and had a great little afternoon as a family eating out for free, so I told the kids we'd do it again.  Got them good and excited for the indulgence and the fun afternoon. I even invited a friend of mine and her daughter to join us.  She lives farther away, though, so she wanted to confirm this offer before she made the drive out.  She couldn't find any evidence of this offer online.  That made me nervous.  I'd taken the magazine's word for it.  After all, we'd done it last year based on this same magazine's claim and it had been true.  To be sure, I called IHOP and was informed that the magazine was wrong.  They plan to have a free pancake dinner again, but not until March.  So I'd promised my kids, gotten them excited, and now it wasn't happening.  So, I did the only thing I could do, and we created IHOP at home.

I am usually such a healthly eater than plain white flour pancakes are unheard of at our house, but that's what IHOP serves, so that's what we had.  Then I went a step further and let them create faces on their pancakes, just like at IHOP.  It turned out to be a  really fun afternoon with the delicious pancakes and bananas, yougurt, applesauce, shredded coconut, grape jelly, and whipped cream decorated on top.  I think we had much more fun than if we'd gone out.  So, we managed to turn our disappointment around and have a good afternoon.  Doesn't mean we don't plan on going to IHOP on March 4th. :)  You'll still see us there.

Thank you, phone thief

I just want to thank whoever now has my cell phone because they pushed me into the 21st century against my will, but I'm actually enjoying it.  I had a flip phone which I loved.  It was red and stylish and didn't look like a the old-school oval flip phones. It was a flip phone with bling.  It looked really cool and I loved it.  But it was a flip phone at heart.  No internet, no apps, no touch screen.  And I liked it that way.  I reveled in my cheap cell phone bills and used my laptop when I needed internet and I was happy.  Until two weeks ago when my phone mysteriously disappeared.  I put it in my bag when I went to the gym, never used it while at the gym, came home and found that it was no longer in my bag.  I called it and called it and called it, while walking around the house, and in the garage, and while crawling around in the car.  No sound could be heard.  Then on about the 10th call, it went straight to voicemail.  A fully charged phone.  Explain that.  So, I assume someone stole it/found it and decided they needed it more than I did, but the constant ringing was getting on their nerves.  Repeated trips to the lost and found at the gym yielded nothing but comments like "A flip phone?  Old school, huh?"  Alas.  Time for a new phone and time to bite the bullet and upgrade.  So I joined the world of the iphone users and I am having a lot fun.

It took me about 5 minutes to compose my first 3 line text message using that darn touch screen, but I'm getting faster.  And I love that I can dictate my text messages!  And do you know you can watch movies on this thing!?  Amazing. :)  I had the guy at the Sprint store cracking up with my naivete.  I walked in there sooo clueless.  It's not that I'm dumb, it's just that tech is completely uninteresting to me.  I simply haven't ever had a use for it and I've been too busy raising kids and running a household and dealing with church stuff to worry about the latest phone.

Salesman:  (handing me the iphone 5c) Go ahead and check it out.
Me: (staring at it skeptically): What do I do with it?
Salesman: Well, what do you want to do?
Me:  I make calls with my phone.  How do I do that with this one?
Salesman: (clearly trying very hard not to laugh) Ok. If you want to make a call you do this...(proceeds to show me how to open contacts and select a name.
Me: Once I've found the name of the person, then how do I call them?
Salesman: (winning the award for patience with the tech idiot) You press the phone icon and it calls them.
Me: Ok.  Looks good.  I'll take this one.
Salesman: Would you like to see what else it can do?
Me: Ok. Sure. What else can it do?

Thus began a whirlwind tutorial on the iphone and it was pretty fun, I have to admit.  I can see the appeal.  I definitely liked the iphone more than the android model he showed me because the iphone seemed so much more intuitive, (read: easier to use without taking the time to read a user manual).  What floored me was when I'd show it to my friends and even inside the case I bought for it, all I had to do was hold it up and people would say, "Oh, you got the 5c!"  What?  How can you tell that just by looking at it??  Amazing people.  Two weeks ago I couldn't have even told you it was an iphone.

So, long story short, thank you phone thief, but now could you help me reenter my 200 contact phone numbers?  Because, of course, they don't carry over from my old stone-age phone.  To my friends: if I don't call you for a while, it's not that I don't care, it's that I've lost your number.

My Toothless Wonder

My sweet Benjamin lost both his front teeth this week.  They have been loose for two months, but he's really hesitant to wiggle loose teeth too much for fear that it'll hurt, so they've taken their time coming out.  On Saturday evening I couldn't wait anymore and I asked to see his wiggly teeth.  I grabbed one and yanked.  Before he knew it, it was out and he was so happy.  Then tonight (Wednesday) I noticed the other one hanging by a corner and I did the same thing.  He was so excited to have them both out (and to be getting even more money).  I still remember the day I lost my front teeth and insisted on calling my grandma in the United States (I was in Berlin at the time) to tell her the good news.  I remember taking pictures and feeling so grown up.  I think Benjamin did too. So amazing how big he's getting.

Snow Fun!

The new year brought snow and LOTS of it.  It was so much fun.  We went sledding and made snow forts and snow slides and had snow ball fights and when we were tired, we laid down and buried each other in it or made snow angels.

This is how Benjamin prepares for a snowball fight.  I tried to tell him, "It's a snow BALL fight, not a snow BOULDER fight."  Luckily his aim is terrible.

This is the kids buried in the snow.  This was after the first snow, so there wasn't a lot yet, but enough to have fun in.  You can't see it in the picture, but Benjamin is buried in the middle.  He wanted to see what it would be like to be completely covered.  The others weren't so daring.

This was the beginning of one of our snow forts.  We ended up finishing up the sides and back and had a pretty awesome igloo, if I do say so myself.  We also built a second one a few feet away facing it so we could have the two sides of the snowball fight.  However, we made the mistake of inviting two little football player neighbor boys over to join the fight and they had both forts destroyed in about 30 seconds with no remorse.  Benjamin was seething.  I wasn't happy to see 2+ hours of work wasted, but I just hope it snows again soon so we can build them back up.

Then it got really, really cold and we simply enjoyed it from the window. Well....at first I thought, how bad could it be?  What's "wind chill" anyway?  Just some guy's idea of how "cold it feels?"  Bah.  Bunch of wimps.  That doesn't bother me.  Off we go grocery shopping!  By the time we got the groceries from the store to the car, my younger two were crying.  Literally, big sobs and screams, "It's cold!"  I tried to quickly get the groceries loaded in the car, but my gloves were too bulky to do it right and without them, my hands became stiff and numb in seconds so loading became even harder!  It was a nightmare.  -30 degrees is no joke.  Pull out the food storage if you have to, but no trips to Costco in those temperatures!   So we headed home and that's the last time we emerged for 4 days.

Christian found a cozy spot inside the linen closet.

It was really fun inside too.  School was cancelled so we got nearly an extra week of Christmas vacation and we enjoyed it as much as we could as hermits.  Crafts, board games, movies, pretend play etc.  We did venture out once to blow bubbles and watch them freeze, but that didn't last long. They even cancelled church so we had a little "devotional" on Sunday.  The kids and I pretended we were in the Little House on the Praire book - The Long Winter - when they are in the middle of the long winter the Indian predicted and they're forced to stay inside their house nearly all winter. Pa gets lost outside just a few feet from home but the snow is so thick he can't see the house.  They nearly all starve if it weren't for Almanzo and his daring trek to get wheat from a settler far away.  Sorry, enough plot line ramblings.  We just really enjoyed that series. :)

We're on J this week, so we made simple little jelly fish.

And of course, no day goes by in our house without someone pretending to be a cat.  Additionally, Christian is going through a girl clothes phase.  Every day he puts on Bella's dresses and says he's "getting fancied-up."  He will change clothes all day long, wearing 4-5 dresses/day.  I insist he wear boy clothes in public, but I don't fight the battle at home.  This day he was wearing a black and white dress so he became "Mumbo's sister."  "I'm black and white like Mumbo!  I'm his sister!"  I hope he outgrows the phase soon, but for now, it's kind of fun to see her out-grown dresses get a second life. :)

This past Sunday we finally had church again and it was Christian's first time in primary as a Sunbeam.  Up until now he's been in the nursery class, but he's finally a "big boy" and allowed to go to primary with his siblings.  He was so immensely proud. And it was so fun as Primary president to look out and see all my kids together in primary with me. I got a picture of him in his new Sunday outfit looking so handsome, but the kids played with my camera and erased it (or so I guess, because the picture is no where to be found and they've been playing with the camera these last couple days).  So sad.  I'll have to take another and pretend it was taken on the big day. ;)   As a substitute, I'll put in this picture.  Benjamin was playing photographer and wanted everyone to put on jeans and blue shirts and take a picture together.  Bella refused to wear a blue shirt, however, so she compromised with the jeans.  No picture, of the many taken, has them all looking at the camera at the same time, but I thought these two were cute.  Especially the one where Bella looks adoringly at her big brother. I really do have the cutest kids.  They're really growing up.

Merry Christmas!!

Months are flying by and I don't know where they're going.  Did I really not update this blog all month?? Well, I can't let the year end without at least a little something.

Despite the horrors of November's illness, we've managed to have a wonderful holiday season.  We had several families over for Thanksgiving and had a fantastic meal and fun games afterwards.  Then we kicked into Christmas mode.  Christmas music played every day at our house, we made Christmas crafts and ornaments, drove through the festival of lights (a 4 mile stretch of road, shut down to outside traffic and decorated with over 1 million lights), celebrated Advent every Sunday after church, made gingerbread men, made paper snowflakes, went to the Nutcracker ballet, went to Holiday Nights at Greenfield Village, etc.  It has been so fun.  This year we also put up a big paper Christmas tree on our sliding glass door and decorated it with paper ornaments we made, each labeled with gifts we want to give Christ this coming year.  The kids put things like "be more reverent in sacrament meeting," "be nicer to my brother/sister," "obey mommy and daddy."  I enjoyed watching them think about what they could give rather than what they could receive.

Christmas was so fun this year too.  At the beginning of the month I showed them Elder Rasband's talk from the church's Christmas devotional in which he tells the story of a mother who had nothing to give her kids on Christmas except for some cookies she stayed up all night making out of juice she boiled off a squash.  The story says that the kids were thrilled to receive their little squash cookies.  I reminded them how blessed they were and that daddy works very hard to make the money for presents and that they need to remember to be grateful rather than demanding.  Several times during the month I reminded them of the squash cookies and apparently it sunk in because they were darlings.  Very grateful and sweet and seemed to genuinely appreciate their gifts rather than display the attitude I saw last year of "is this it??" and "why isn't there more?"

Christian was so excited about the first gifts he opened that he seemed to completely forget about the rest.  He ran off happily with his Jake and the Neverland Pirate ship and bandana, his toy phone, and his toy kitten and despite Bella calling, "But Christian, you have more!"  he didn't come back.  So I quietly took several large presents and hid them away again.  I'm set for his birthday!

On Christmas Eve we did our traditional nativity reenactment.  This year Kelly was a sheep. "Come along sheep-y, we have to find Jesus."  This was the first year that Christian wasn't the baby Jesus.  My little baby's growing up.  He insisted on being Joseph, riding his sword as a donkey.  In fact, he was so focused on riding the "donkey" around Bethlehem that Mary had to do all the talking at every inn.  "Knock knock. Can we stay here?"  I was angel/wise man/innkeeper/narrator.  Basically the star of the show. :)  As usual it was a blast and highly entertaining.

Other than holiday festivities, I've been enjoying just having two kids at home.  I love Benjamin to bits but he's a pessimist through and through and sometimes it's nice to just have my two optimists home with me.  They are endlessly creative and have very similar interests.  Their latest fascination is to pretend to be cats.  So Bella made them little cat ear headbands and every day they get out bowls and pretend to drink, make themselves little cat beds on the floor, and crawl around meowing and bumping my legs insisting I pet and brush them.

 The funniest was when Mumbo also drank from their bowls and they got fur in their mouths.  That kind of put an end to the water bowls on the floor.  They still love their Mumbo, though.

And so do I.  Although my heart still aches for the baby that never comes, he's been a wonderful addition. His favorite place is under Benjamin's bed where the heater vent is and secondly, our small couch.  Even when it was covered with presents on Christmas Eve, he made sure to claim a spot.

 Christian is on a quest to learn his letters.  Up to this point he's shown absolutely no interest and even resisted efforts I've made, so I laid low.  My other two knew all their letters (upper and lower case) and their sounds by the time they started preschool.  They both started reading by their second year of preschool.  So I was curious why he showed such resistance.  Not worried, but just curious if it was the effect of being a third child or just simply his personality. But recently he told me that he'd like to start learning them and so we've done a letter each week.  We decorate one window in the house with window crayons showing the letter and all things we can think to draw that start with that letter, we do a craft or two that week with that letter as the theme, we practice writing it in various mediums (shaving cream, paint, crayon, etc.) and we talk about it and point out that letter as much as possible during the week.  Results are mixed.  Some letters we've had to stay on for 2 or 3 weeks before I feel like he knows it.  We're on "I" now and it's still not really sinking in.  I asked him today to identify an I which I saw on a sign and he looked at me quizzically and said, "F?"  So we still have a ways to go, but then, out of the blue on Sunday during church he whispers to me, "how do you spell bacon?"  I'm homeschooling Bella this year and so the phrase, "how do you spell...?" gets asked a lot around here.  I figured he was just trying to imitate his big sis who was also asking that question from time to time as she composed a letter to daddy which she planned to give to him after sacrament meeting.  I was trying to listen to the talk, so I quickly rattled off B-A-C-O-N and turned away again.  "Wait, what?  Say that again, B and then what?"  I kept my eyes and one ear on the speaker and more slowly whispered the rest of the letters.  Not for a minute did I think he was actually writing the letters.  I figured he was making scribbles and just pretending to write.  Not until I got to N and he said, "I don't know how to write N," did I look down.

I was amazed.  I held his hand and moved it on the paper for the N and then I did a little happy dance inside and gave him a big hug.  Why in the world of all words, he chose bacon, I'll never know, but I was really proud of his first word.  I know this doesn't make him an Einstein, but it made me happy to see his progress.  Not only did he recognize the letters I said, but he knew them well enough to write them himself without looking at them first.  My little boy really is growing up.

Well, that's been 2013.  Looking forward to another wonderful year.

The Eternal Sickness

This month has been a blur.  Where did November go?  All we've done is be sick.  We have all been sick at our house.  First Benjamin, then Kelly, then me, then Christian, and finally Isabella, with quite a bit of overlap amongst us.  It's been brutal.  Congestion, coughing, nausea, headache, sinus pressure, body aches. I'm not completely better yet, after 4 weeks of coughing, but I'm on the mend....I hope.  There was a week where I never slept more than 3 hours a night due to coughing fits.  I spent three nights in the van in the garage because I was keeping everyone awake with my loud, barking coughs.  Kelly sometimes coughed so hard we would all just stop and stare at him in shock and fear, half expecting blood to come spewing onto the floor, as he stood doubled over hacking.  So, we've been taking it easy, hanging out at home, and doing little this month other than falling asleep at random times when we just couldn't take it anymore. I found Bella in the basement like this one afternoon.  (Mumbo had been asleep too. It was adorable. Sadly, I woke him when I took the picture.)

I guess this month hasn't been a total loss - we did manage to dig a large tunnel.  Let me explain.  There's a park near our house with a large, long pile of dirt.  It's been there so long that grass and weeds have begun to grow on it.  We have no reason why it's there in the middle of  the park but it's the main attraction in this park for as  long as we've been going there.  Location for King of the Hill, secret spy fort, pirate's hideout - you name it, this hill has been it. This month Benjamin decided he would like to dig a tunnel through it, big enough that he could crawl through.  I handed him a small shovel that I had in the car for playing in sandboxes and went to push the other two on the swings, figuring he'd give up soon when he discovered how much work that would be.  Benjamin is no friend to work.  He'll shirk anything he can, so I really wasn't expecting him to stick with such a task.  He proved me dead wrong.  Four hours of digging later, he had a tunnel he could crawl through.  FOUR HOURS!  It was crazy. We'd all helped some in the process, but the majority of the work was his.   He really impressed me. 

He was the first to go through and then everyone else wanted to try it too.  The whole tunnel was just about as long as he is, so his feet would just disappear at one end as his head emerged at the other.  Everyone thought it was awesome and crawled through multiple times. 

 We had planned to return, but our wicked illness took its toll and we haven't yet.  Can't say I'm sad about that.  Never have I had so much work cleaning clothes - jackets, gloves, shoes, pants, etc.!! Dirt everywhere! And my car seats!  I won't be reminding them about the tunnel any time soon.

Benjamin just loves doing stuff like that - building forts, digging tunnels, even crafts and similar small things with his hands.  He just loves it.  Whereas I have trouble getting him to sit and practice his writing for more than 5 minutes; he'll work on a fort or project for hours without distraction.  If only everything in school could be so hands-on.

Halloween

What a fun busy last few weeks we've had!  Camping, a visit from my mom, the primary program, my birthday, and Halloween.  It's been a lot of fun.

As soon as soccer was over and we had a Saturday free, we went camping with some friends of ours.  I have to admit that I wasn't all that excited to go because originally it was going to be Kelly's trip with the kids to have some quality time with them while I got some quality time with  my book. I was going to read, sleep, and clean the house before my mom visited. The situation changed, though, and I ended up kind of being guilted into going.  In the end I'm glad I went.  My house ended up being a mess for my mom, but it was a lot of fun outdoors.

 Only downside - the dumb rain that didn't let up nearly the whole second day.  Jackets and a rain fly over the picnic table solved most of that, though.  The kids were great sports.  They had fun playing on the playground, at the beach, and around the campsite.  Not until they were all soaking wet did they start to grumble...and sing "This is the song that never ends..." Incessantly.  That's when we packed up and headed home.  Not a moment too soon.

The next day my mom came and we had a great time as she did my dishes every day and bought everyone new clothes and toys. :)  We also enjoyed time at Greenfield Village and various playgrounds and restaurants. 

 She and Benjamin also went alone to Best Buy to check out all the fun gadgets - the highlight of his week. Used to be that he'd ask my mom to take him to Toys R Us.  Now the "toy store" is Best Buy.  My little boy is growing up ;)

At the end of her visit, we had the primary program in church.  That's were all the kids 3-11 years old give talks and sing songs and basically take over all of the service in the chapel, or in Mormon terms, "sacrament meeting."  Since I'm primary president, I was in charge of writing and directing the entire thing.  That was stressful, but the kids were wonderful.  Benjamin and Bella had their parts memorized and had practiced so much at home that Christian even learned Bella's part.  They got up there without fear or trouble and it was wonderful.  There were several people in the audience crying so I know the spirit was strongly felt and I'm glad.  It makes the stress worth it.

Just cute photos of Christian reading to Mumbo and napping with Mumbo sometime this week.  How he loves that cat!

Finally it was Halloween.  I am so jealous of those who get adorable photos of their kids in costume.  I have neither a good camera nor any good skills and I completely forgot to take pictures of trick-or-treating until after it was over when we all looked like drowned, muddy rats from being out all evening in the rain.  So, that picture will not get posted, but here's a cute one of me and Bella before the church's Halloween party and one of the kids at church.  Christian was a train conductor for his preschool party and at church, but switched to being a mailman for trick-or-treating.  Benjamin was a Dragon Ninja but the head cloth bothered his face, so people kept asking "Are you a knight?"  After 3 or 4 times of being asked that, he got a sword and started saying "yes."  Bella was originally going to be a witch with me but at the last minute I found a gypsy costume that was just so Isabella that I couldn't pass it up.  Purple, sparkly, and with the fake midriff, it just screamed Bella.  Sure enough, she loved it so much that the witch costume was forgotten.  She was a happy tinkling gypsy for days.

I also had a great birthday.  Kelly bought me chocolate cheerios as my present.  What more could I ask for?  My visiting teacher brought me dinner so I wouldn't have to cook (my least favorite thing to do) on my birthday.  That was inspired.  I couldn't have been happier at that moment.  The kids made their beds so I wouldn't have to.  I felt very loved. :)

I also had a friend of mine watch Bella and Christian so I could help out at Benjamin's school halloween party.  I really wanted to see how he interacted in school with his friends.  It was pretty much what I expected - he doesn't really interact.  He's alone a lot.  That was sad to see, but not surprising.  He's been telling me that he's having a hard time making friends and that he's alone most of the time.  I didn't know what to tell him.  I saw the Indian kids hanging out in groups of Indian kids and the white kids hanging out with other white kids and then Benjamin not really with either group.  He likes school and we're very happy with the program and the academics, but I hope he manages to find someone he can connect with on a more personal level.

 Now it's on to Thanksgiving and Christmas!  I'm excited.  Once my birthday is over, I'm okay with all the Christmas garishness in the stores.  It's at that point that I start to enjoy it and get excited too.  This time of year is really so much fun.