A Dozen Candles

Today I took Wesley to Thomas' school to kidnap Thomas for lunch for his birthday.  Thomas acted like a cool cat when he saw us, but was clearly happy.  I told his teacher we were taking him out for bday lunch, and she said, "Thomas, I didn't know to day was your birthday."  Thomas said, "Yeah, until now it's been like any other day."  I'm SO glad I put housework down for an hour to spend time with Thomas on his special day.  He chose to go to KFC, and then we went over to Michael's where he picked out a model Camaro for his birthday.  Like father like son.  

Birthday dinner was LOBSTER and chicken for the lobster haters.  Thomas' cake was a basketball with Oreo "Fun Stix" holding the candles, and crushed Oreos around the side of the cake.  It was all yummy!

Somehow the kids (Thomas included) guessed all of Thomas' gifts before he opened them!  It was impressive.  Wesley gave Thomas some Lucky Charms cereal.  Thomas was thrilled to finally get a Swiss Army knife.  Because Thomas turned 12, this birthday brings his priesthood ordination next Sunday and then his first temple trip (with Wayne & I) the weekend after he's ordained.  Lots to look forward to...more pics to come!  We LOVE our Thomas!

True Blue New England PJ's

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

....and this is how quite possibly the coolest New England pj's ever made were created.   Christmas was just around the corner and I realized I didn't have enough Patriots fleece to make pj bottoms, and the fabric store was out, so I decided to mix it up and do panel pants out of Patriots and Red Sox fleece.  Thomas loves them.

the front:

 and back:

The only thing that could make these better would be if they were all football because that's all we follow for sports during cold "fleece" months.  So, I'll hunt down some BYU and USC fleece and make a pair for each of my 3 boys.


Christina's Christmas pj's were handmade too.  I saw the flannel patchwork penguin & Minkee fabric and knew it was just for her.  The pic is a little blurry, but the black and white squares have contrasting polka dots.... so soft and cozy.

Back to School

Monday night we had a nice Back to School dinner:

Trader Joe's Tri Tip

Sweet Corn * Green Salad

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

&

Boston Cream Pie

We had a short Family Home Evening: reviewed our new schedule and
Wayne gave ALL of our kids father's blessings since they will ALL be in school this year!  So, maybe it wasn't such a short FHE, but it was really nice, and I felt so much pride and joy for our children who are all simply amazing souls in my eyes.

This morning I got up early to take Christina to her bus stop.  Seminary doesn't start until next week, so we can "sleep in" until 6am this week.  Christina had a great 1st day and said, "I didn't get lost!"

Thomas has a great set of teachers this year.  They are the same teacher Christina had in 6th grade.  Mrs. E. has battled cancer and Thomas is so fortunate to have such a dedicated, marvelous teacher for math and science.  Thomas wanted a profile pic this a.m., to show how much he packed in his backpack.

Grace was hoping for a good first day; that she "wouldn't be nervous, scared, or throw up." All went well.

Caroline found her friends quickly at class line up in the a.m., but did look back to find me and give me a BIG wave as she went into school.  This was Caroline's first day of ALL day school since she just had 1/2 day Kindergarten.  I missed her!!!  For some reason that extra couple hours seemed like forever to me. 

Wesley's first day is coming soon.... unbelievable!

Work & Play- boys' style

A.M.: Wayne and Thomas chopped wood for a friend & delivered it to another friend.

Next up for the boys: Pax East in Boston (THANKS, Neal!)

Thomas' take on the outing.....

I liked learning about all of the cool games and I liked the freebies.

Thomas got to meet Chewbacka. (I'm jealous!)

And played the Disney driving game, Split Second (will be released in May) with a cute Disney employee.

Thomas' review: It was awesome. I liked that you had to break at the turns or you'd fall of the hill and restart. One time I got stuck in the bushes & I had to restart.

PM: Hanging out at home while mom & Christina go to the YW Broadcast.

Good Times.

Skiing & Snowboarding at Ward Hill

One more February post...

Wayne has had fun this winter taking Christina and Thomas and a couple of their friends snowboarding and skiing at Ward Hill. These pics are from the time they went with Christina's friend, Mikell. They put in a full day on the hill and had smiles and sore muscles to show for it.

Thomas would rather get on with getting down the hill...

The Tree of Life

Recently we were reading the Book of Mormon, specifically Nephi 8 about Lehi's vision of the tree of life. We compared it to Nephi's vision in chapter 11. Wayne asked us to each share one thing that came to mind while we reading. {I was happy that all comments were on topic -- you never know!}

Thomas' insight was particularly thoughtful.... "I thought of the fruit as the gospel. I wondered if the people who left the tree after eating the fruit just didn't sink their teeth into it enough and didn't really take it in." {At this point Thomas was doing an impressive visual of devouring an imaginary apple and savoring it.} Wayne and I both sat there taking in this great analogy. I thought, "Do I really savor the gospel?" We both told Thomas that once again, we found new insight reading the Book of Mormon, even though we've read these chapters more times than we can count. In relating it to his life, Thomas said, "I want to live by the tree of life. I want to really take the fruit into my soul."

Me too.

I know that when I am casual in living the gospel, I miss out on the joy that comes from really digging in. There's sacrifice, heartbreak, difficult lessons, and a lot of humility involved, but nothing compares to the joy of deeply feeling the Lord's love in my life & witnessing that love in the lives of others as well.

Note: Both images are from the downloadable Gospel Art Book found HERE.

Mommy notes & Literature for all ages

• Wesley is progressing with his speech development. Sheila, his speech therapist, works with him once a week and noted last week that it seems as though Wes has had a "word explosion" in his brain. The struggle is getting those words out. We see progress every day and Wes loves "playing" with Sheila. He about melts her heart with his "gank you"-s & "you welcome." Wes' buddy G. might as well be his other speech therapist. He's a month older than Wes and he is a great talker, so Wesley learns a lot from G. during their weekly play dates. They have lots of fun playing cars, setting up chairs for a train ride, picnics in the family room, and literally running around in circles.
• Wesley is a budding chef. I walked in the kitchen this morning to see that he helped himself to the food the big kids left out after making their school lunches. He made himself a PB & C sandwich: peanut butter & baby carrots. I asked Wesley if it was yummy (he had taken one bite) and he said, "No."
• Wesley love anything we read to him, but has had lots of fun with word and ASL flash cards like THESE.

• Sweet Caroline is loving Kindergarten. She's always, always, always taking nice notes, apples, and trinkets to her teachers. She loves it when they write back. Something that stuck out to me at Caroline's last teacher's conference....Mrs. K said that if there's a child who is having a hard day, she knows that she can ask Caroline to sit by them and Caroline will befriend them as naturally and sincerely as she would any of the other children in the class. She's a friend to everyone.

• Yesterday I sent Caroline to her room to clean it, although it's at a point where I need to help. After about 1/2 hour I went to check on her progress and she was sound asleep in bed. I was a bit jealous.
• Caroline & I just read the book, A Bad Case of Stripes. This book gets a BIG thumbs up from Caroline!

• Grace got a great start on her classes' reading challenge at school. The girl loves to read. The challenge with kids who are advanced readers is finding age appropriate reading material. Her more recent recommendations: Romona the Brave, Hoot, & Scat.

Yesterday's silly conversation while Grace sat on my lap, we were hugging & cheek-to-cheek:

Grace: Mom, I love you more than a pig loves mud.

Wayne: Grace, some advice...don't compare you mom to a pig.

Grace: Mom, I love you more than a hippo in a tutu! (giggles all around while Wayne is shaking his head)

Grace: Fine. I love you more than Daddy. (more LAUGHTER!)

• Thomas...I loved the drive to NY with Thomas last weekend. I loved seeing him have fun once we got there, and exploring the frozen stream, just me and him. But as we drove there and back (4 hours each way), it was so nice to just talk & not be interrupted. It's hard to make 1-1 time happen, but it's always SO nice when we do.
• Thomas took 1st place by a slim margin in his last Pinewood Derby. I'll post pics soon. He had a blast with his pals at Cubs and will go to Regionals soon.
• I was asked to come in after school to help Thomas organize his desk and locker- apparently the kids, including Thomas, have organizational issues. When I got there the teacher said that when Thomas remembered I was coming, he grabbed all of his loose papers and threw them in recycling. NOT the best system, Thomas! :) I helped Thomas fine tune the good progress he had already made & agreed he'd do a desk check each Friday before coming home, so his desk is always nice and neat on Monday morning.
• Thomas is reading The Series of Unfortunate Events. He also recently read and enjoyed, The Great Brain which fostered some priceless discussion, and The Book of Three.
• Thomas was recently recognized by his teachers in a school assembly for his achievement in writing. He has a courageous, straight forward writing style that makes me smile. He shared with me an idea he has for a book he wants to write. I hope he writes it someday because it sounds AWESOME! (I'd say that even if he wasn't my son)

• Christina has 5 more months of Jr High! What?! She's doing really well in school, and doing what it takes to get good marks in Chinese. Wayne and I have been no help with her Chinese homework, so she's really had to self-motivate, and I think that's helped her take initiative and responsibility for her own work, success & missteps in her other classes. She's a great, positive student. Some of her writing has been honestly compelling. It's wonderful to see her hard work reep real talent.

• I think the sky would have to be falling for Christina to miss a Young Women's activity, or church for that matter. She's got amazing leaders and friends, and she is working hard on her own with her personal progress in YW. I will forever be grateful for the faithful trail she's blazing for her sisters.
• Nina recently read, Lovely Bones (too dark for her at the beginning), and A Northern Light, which she liked a bit more. An avid reader, Christina recently started keeping a "reading journal" using the little 4"x6" book, What I Read.

Feeling Blessed,

PHOTOS by MACY ROBISON PHOTOGRAPHY

A super quick reunion

My "little" brother, Ben from CA was in town on business. I enjoyed a little mommy-son time with Thomas who joined me on the drive to meet up with Ben at Uncle Jim's cabin. We had a nice time catching up, whipping up a delicious 20 minute recipe in 2 hours, being treated to Thomas' a.m. omelets, deer (& bear!) watching, exploring by the streams, playing Monopoly, Domino's, & having our own Twilight Zone marathon....

and Uncle-supervised sledding....

(Yes, Thomas is fine....he came up eating snow & laughing)

Thomas' words: Life doesn't get much better than this- I won the Pinewood Derby and the next day I got to go to Uncle Jim's cabin.

Thanks, Jim & Allison. We had a great time!

Dad's Snowboarding School

Santa brought new (to them) snowboards for Christina and Thomas. Today was DAY 1 of Dad's Snowboarding School. Christina and Thomas are skiers and weren't sure if they'd like snowboarding, but ended up having a blast. Thomas said he thinks snowboarding is "even more awesome" than skiing.

Grace & Caroline whirled and twirled on saucers.

Oh, what fun!

Remembering back when....

Don't you love it when your kids "reminisce" about "back when" which was about a year ago in their minds? I'm ancient in their eyes. Ancient!

Dear Thomas,

I'm thinking of our conversation yesterday:

You: I miss the days back when I could be friends with girls and no one made fun of me.

Me: Who's making fun of you?

You: Just a guy named [Bill] and all of his friends; and he has A LOT of friends.

Me: How's he making fun of you?

You: Well, if [Bill] sees me talking to a girl, like my FRIEND, [Mary], he'll say I'm "hitting on her." And I'M NOT, mom.

Me: So, how do you respond to that?

You: I call him a "cake sniffer."

Me: What's a cake sniffer? And how does [Bill] respond to this?

You: I don't know what it means and neither does [Bill]. He just walks away confused. It's perfect because he leaves me alone, but I don't offend him either, I just confuse him.

......I just miss the days when I could be friends with a girl without someone making fun of me.

Your dad and I had a good laugh at this conversation, Thomas. Sooner than you know it, the good old days of girl "friends" will be back. When that time comes, hopefully you'll be as comfortable talking with them as you are now.

By the way, [Mary] is a cute girl. I'll bet [Bob] is jealous. It's similar to the situation where a girl gives you a punch in the arm, but she really has a crush on you; things are not always as they seem. [Bob] probably makes fun of you, but wishes he was in your shoes. Seriously, I know a thing or two about this stuff.

Hugs,

You can't pause life...

...but you can climb a tree to take a little time to let your mind wander and wonder about things like

• how cool it is to be high up in a tree
• stick fighting
• the huge sky that goes on and on
• how life really is good

I love my tree climbing childhood memories & am so glad my kids will have their very own!

My 1st 10K

I ran the Tufts 10K for Women on Columbus Day with over 8000 other participants- mostly runners, but some walkers as well. The route is a great one, starting at Boston Common, crossing the Charles River, running along the river on Memorial Drive, and then crossing back over to Beacon St.

For my first 10K race, I started out great and ultimately did O.K. I tried to focus on other things besides considering bladder suspension surgery after having to take a pit-stop 1/2 way through the race. Aside from my stop (SO frustrating!), I ran the whole race. Seeing Wayne and Thomas cheering me on for the last stretch put a smile on my face for that last quarter mile. So much of my life is focused on my kids; it's nice to work at a personal goal, go for it, and have the support of my family. They're pretty amazing.

PS...That evening, Wayne and I met up with his cousin, Stephen & his wife Michelle for a lobster roll and NE clam "chowda" at the Barking Crab on the Boston Wharf, and then a cannoli at Mike's Pastry in the bustling North End. We're so glad we got to visit while they were in town for the weekend! Needless to say, any calories lost during my 10K were quickly replaced...what's a diet anyway?!