Letter to our Missionaries

Brookely and Kourtney (Nate's 2 youngest sisters) are serving Missions.  One will be in Costa Rica and the other in Brazil. 
Here is our first letter to them.
Hey Girls,
I hope you don't mind that I write the same letter.  Maes was planning on writing both of you, but I think she got tired after Kourtney...sorry Brookley.  I suggested copy and paste because it would be a lot of the same stuff, but she wanted to be personal.  So maybe Brookley will get one next. 

Lakeside is great.  Now that I think the snow is over.  But we have the awful wind!  Our apple trees are blooming.  I have decided to water the one that did not produce last year. I hear that plants like water!  I also am working on filling my grow boxes.  We won't plant until next month, but those boxes need to be filled.  Ben hates productivity, so it is hard to get it done when I want to. 

Maesyn is doing well.  I am sure she will write often.  She got her hair cut recently.  The next morning I was styling it and she said she just wished that Barry (the hair dresser) could just come over every morning and do her hair for her.  Stinker.  She is looking forward to her trip to Michigan at the end of May. I am dreading it.  It would be awesome if it were just the 2 of us, but Ben kinda likes to eat breast milk so he gets to come too.  It is my own fault.  I don't want him to accidental ween himself while I am gone.  Not that I enjoy nursing a little man with 4 teeth!  He also LOVES food, but not being fed food, feeding himself.  Chaco thinks it is an excellent idea too.  He loves it when Ben is done and he can clean up after him.  Ben does not crawl yet, and we are OK with that.  He thinks he should stand a lot too. 

Maesyn is currently reading a book to a group of stuffed animals...Her bear is playing a tickle game with her and I have been asked to stop looking at her.  She gets tummy aches when asked to clean up.  Also her hands hurt when ever I ask her to help with the groceries and she is selectively full of certain foods.  She will be full of normal food, but not too full for dessert.  Turkey!

Jake is his usual lost boy self.  He is a fantastic dresser.  I wish I would take photos daily to post of him.  I think from now on I will only buy him clothes with obnoxious patterns on them.  I love a pair of plaid shorts with a stripped shirt and stripped socks (different color stripes of course) and his purple checker vans.  Awesome!  And anything with cowboy boots rocks.  Especially skinny jeans, but mostly shorts!  My friend suggested using coconut oil in cooking, so I have a huge tub of it!  When I use it Jake asks me why I am putting body cream in the food (you can use it for that too!)  Then he he always takes me up on my offer to lick the spoon (it is so good!). However, he does not like coconut! Silly kid.

I am sure you heard about the bombings in Boston at the Marathon.  I had 3 friends from Mesa there and Nate had to travel there on Wed after the event for work so I was glued to the computer watching the news.  (i was so distracted Chaco ate one of Ben's favorite shoes!).  We did not know if Nate's Conference would be canceled.  When it was not we both felt it was safe for him to go...even though they had not caught the guys.  It turned out that his hotel and conference center were right on the course.  He could see Boylston street and the Charles river from his room.  HE was excited to have a room on that side.  He could watch the investigations going on!  I wanted him to get an iPad for his birthday and noticed there was an apple store right down the street.  I did not realize it was right where one of the bombs went off and closed.  When checking on when it would be open I saw a map on their site of the "secure" area.  It was this big pink triangle, and Nate's hotel was right in it.  So Nate was probably in the safest spot in America those few days.  He got to do some nice site seeing until they had the lock down.  It was then that I got worried.  They were looking for the suspects after a shooting and car chase.  I kept tabs on him then and on the news.  As soon as they lifted the lock down Nate wanted to go for a run...I told him to wait a few min until they finally caught the last guy! ha ha!  He did get to run part of the Marathon course and that was fun.  He said after they caught they guy there was a different mood in the city than the first few days.  It was really great and patriotic.  Parties in the streets and people shouting USA! USA!  I am glad he got to experience that!  It makes me more determined to qualify for Boston now!  I am hoping to do so at St. George if we get in.  I did speed work this week with the wife of our Olympian friend.  She is pretty fast too.  She ran the Mesa half in 1:39 and was very disappointed with her time. We were going to do mile repeats and I seriously had my pre race anxiety dreams the night before.  We were shooting for a 7:30 (don't laugh at how slow I am, i'm just getting back to speed work)...but my first one was a 7:12, so we decided I would run a 7:20 for the last 2 miles. I almost puked 2x!  That means it was a good workout!

I am the same boring person.  Running, cleaning, yelling at my kids, making "barfy" dinners for Jake, and making muffins with Mikah that she never eats because she does not like muffins with "food" in them (i think she means fruit!), and wiping slobber off of things that Mikah did not want Ben to play with.  We are making these awesome cars for a primary activity where they are having a drive in.  Jake and Maesyn will share a vw bus and Mikah will be in a boat they are towing.

OK.  So I hope I did not waste your time with our boring family updates!    We love you both and are very proud of you.
Love, Heidi, Nate, Maesyn, Jake, Mikah, Ben and Chaco (and the smelly bunny).

Sometimes my kids teach me good lessons. On Monday, while frantically trying to get as much garden work done during one of Ben's short sleeping breaks I yelled at the kids to get out of the way of one of the beds so I could fill it with either dirt, leaves or steer manure. I said "What is more important? Getting the garden ready or catching a butterfly?" They gave the obvious answer.."Catching the butterfly." I should listen to them. Later that night I remembered the butterfly catchers they got for Easter.

Can we make muffins?

Several times a week Mikah asks to make muffins with me.  She usually does not like them.  She finally told me she does not want muffins with "food" in them.  I think she means fruit.  So those fantastic blue berry ones...nope.

We made some muffins called "glorious morning muffins" from the betty crocker cook book.  They have both shredded carrots and apples in them.  But she does not mind.  They also have coconut and almonds in them.  She does mind.  So today we will make just a half batch, minus that stuff...However we sub in whole wheat flour, coconut oil and flax.

Ben is really into food.  Not so much baby food, but fishies, and beans and cereal. He is getting too big.  He also likes to stand and not crawl. 

Watching Ben Grow

I let my kids do gross stuff to me because they are my kids!

Never did I imagine that I would hold a kid closer to me while they vomited to avoid getting it on the couch.  It just makes sense though.  If we are sitting on a couch or a chair it is easier to hop in the shower with the kid to clean off than strip down the couch and clean it.  It is just practical.  Would I let another kid do that?  Probably not!  However, yesterday I let Ben do something that was in no way practical.  I just let him do it because he was sick and having a bad day.  He has had a runny snot nose for about 2 days making it hard to breath.  He was annoyed by the snots that I had not had a chance to get off his face.  We were rocking in the chair and I let him rub his snotty face all over my face.  Then I realized it would be better if he just rubbed his snot face on my shirt.  So I let him do that and snuggle in for a rest.

Ninja...shirtless.