Baseball

Each summer Pmc gets to play a bit of baseball with his brother's work league. He came home from a game the other night with this on his wrist.

This is the best picture we could get, but he had the imprint of the laces from the baseball on that wrist for a solid 2 weeks.

Pirates

These two have a serious thing with pirates lately.

When I was little I remember seeing little projects in books or magazines and asking my mom if we could do them. I had a pretty great mom - but I guess doing little projects with me from books and magazines was not one of her strengths/priorities or something, because I don't remember ever getting her to do any of those things with me. So at some point I set a goal to try to be good at doing some of those things with my kids. So, recently we had a book from the library that showed how to make eye patches, pirate hats, swords and pirate hooks - and it might have taken me 2 months to get to it, but we did it. And these boys have really appreciated their pirate dress-ups! Can you tell?

I just love how he's still got a hold on his sword. I'm glad that I made that goal, and I hope I can stick to it with more kids and more demands over the years.

Cpc turned FOUR!

Cpc is so excited to finally be FOUR years old. This year he really understood the concept of asking for things for his birthday. About six months ago he started telling us he wanted bunk beds and a fishing pole for his birthday.

So Pmc and I got his family's old bunk bed and sanded it down and repainted it. We think they turned out beautifully.

Cpc loves them, and even though he was nervous, he has decided he loves sleeping on the top bunk. We also bought some unfinished dressers and a nightstand from IKEA and painted them to match. Both our boys are thrilled with their room, and we're excited to have it done in time for our little baby girl to join us. We took the opportunity to rearrange everything so that we're ready for her to come. Thanks in large part to Aunt Ace - The cradle is in our room, we've reorganized all the kid/baby clothes, the cribs are taken apart downstairs, and now all we have to do is wait for that sweet little girl to join us. It's a good thing we have some good family reunions and time at Bear Lake to keep us busy - because Cpc is pretty excited that now that he's four he can get a little sister too!

Now, if only Popsicle would come home from the other side of the world with his fishing pole!

Do you ever have times where you really wish you were professional at a particular skill? I do. In fact I probably have those times more than the average person. Since I chose to study Liberal Arts & Sciences, I have some skill in many areas, but am not professional at any of them. Most of the time, I love it that way. I think it's fantastic as a mother. The skills I most often wish I had are photography and poetry. Sometimes I have feelings inside of me that I know I could express if I just knew how to write poetry. Then there are the things that I see that create those feelings. I wish I could capture them for everyone else to see. But then again, maybe it's nice to have some things that you can only hold in your memory. I am grateful for memory. That is a creation that no human being can come close to. I am grateful God gave us memory. There are some wonderful things in my memory. There are also some awful things there. Maybe that's why it's so hard sometimes to focus on the good, because the memory holds all of it.

Anyway, this past weekend I was wishing for the skill of photography. Then as I thought about writing this post, I was wishing for the skill of poetry. However, I am very mediocre at the first, and am too afraid to even attempt the second. So in my own meager way, I will try to share what I experienced. I will also be grateful that there are some special things in life that you just have to be there for!

We went to Bear Lake again. For a few of you, that's all I need to say. There is something magic about that place for me. The magic is made of so many things.

the calm before the storm

the white-sand bottom

the rippling glass

the less-crowded, more private northeast beach

windy white-capped days

rolling thunderstorms

lightning shows

holiday fireworks, 4 solid days before and after both July4th and 24th

skiing on the gold

drippy sand-castles

sand bar hot tubs

bottles and bottles of sunscreen and bug repellent

mosquitos and horse-flies

church in st. charles and paris

small town celebrations

raspberry shakes

wishing Bundy's was still around

settling for Bear Cave or LaBeau's

picking raspberries

driving all the way to the north shore for the best glass

bruises from the spray

sore muscles that are never used for anything besides waterskiing

sleeping outside

waking in a dew-dampened sleeping bag

waking from the BRIGHT sun that just peeped over the hill

s'mores

peach cobbler

loaded home-grilled burgers

watermelon and honeydew

time with cousins

launching the boat via tractor

water conditions determine the day's schedule

300-piece giant disney puzzles

fixing the boat, again

rowing back to shore with waterskis

PMC - The Father of our Home

I always think about these awesome feelings I want to write out, and then when I sit down to do it - I just can't quite figure out how to say it. I guess there really just is no way to adequately express the feeling of LOVE, especially when it is combined with the feeling of JOY. LOVE & JOY are such amazing feelings. No wonder so many poets attempt to write about them, and even as lovely as their poetry is, there is always a need for people to write more.

Our home has been filled with LOVE & JOY. And Pmc is the culprit. So, on this Father's Day, I just wanted to give him a little extra recognition for all his hard work and effort. When I went on my first date with Pmc, there was something about him that I just couldn't get over. I couldn't identify it at the time, but looking back I know that it was the way he knew how to prioritize relationships. I had kind of seen it in him as a missionary, but certainly didn't comprehend it. At that time he merely gained my respect as a missionary, even though it seemed many other missionaries didn't see the same thing. But after one evening one-on-one with him, it put me in a trance, and I've been in it ever since.

This one quality of his gave me so much confidence in him that it really didn't take me very long at all to realize that I truly loved him. In fact, we expressed that we loved each other on our 3rd date. Even now I think about that and call it crazy. I was pretty timid about love at the time, having barely gotten through my parents' divorce. My best friend at the time even suggested that we must have known each other better than I let on in the mission field. We didn't. The more time that goes by, I can only think it had to do with this quality. But I knew it was the right thing for us to get married.

After six months of marriage, we decided it was time to have children. I could have, at the time (and still can, thinking back) told you a thousand reasons that it would have been crazy to start having kids already. Not the least of which would have been our finances, and relative emotional/relational immaturity. We certainly had our fair share of issues at the time. Even now I've had good friends ask if I thought we jumped the gun a bit on having kids. Nope. Again, this quality of his gave me the utmost assurance that starting to grow our family was the right thing for us to do.

Pmc and I have made plenty of mistakes in our relationship. Getting married when we did, and having children when we have have certainly, in my mind, not been those mistakes. If anything, they are the precise things that have pulled both of us through. They are the things that have blessed us to learn the lessons we needed to learn in life. I can only presume this will continue. And I think all of this goes back to Pmc's ability to prioritize relationships. I'm not saying his priorities are always straight. Sometimes he does let other things get in the way of relationships. However, he ALWAYS gets it right if you give him a chance, an extra measure of love and understanding, and a little time.

This is something that I could tell from that very first date, although I would have been very hard-pressed to be able to express that that was what I saw.

So although life has not been easy, and we've made all sorts of mistakes, our home is filled with LOVE & JOY and we are as HAPPY a family as could posssibly be imagined. And I really think this little family of ours owes it all to Pmc. I am so grateful to have him as my best friend, my confidant, my lover, and the FATHER of our beautiful children.

I hope that someday our children will read this and know just how important they have always been to him. Because although he's not perfect, nor will he ever be in this life - he does love them, and will always prioritize them correctly, even if it takes some time sometimes to get it straightened out.

P.S. I love the first picture even though Cdc isn't looking at the camera - but this one just shows off the personalities we've got around here. Doesn't Pmc look good in his first real bow-tie? Cpc chose it!

A Balanced Family = A Happy Family

This obviously is not a fantastic family picture. We just needed something to share for a family reunion this summer, so we pulled out our little tripod after church on Sunday. But hey, this is how we look these days!

PMC: Life's balanced right now because there's not a lot of free time to direct, at least not for Pmc. 3 lawns to mow each week, work at the furniture store, homework to do, class to attend, church responsibilities and meetings, and the typical around-the-house projects. Yup, that's pretty much it these days (except he left out all of the work and play he does with our little family - he's really good at prioritizing that, even when he's so busy and stressed). And it's a good thing that the graduate program provides some social interaction, because we hardly see our friends anymore - and that's hard!

The truck has really helped though, so what if it's as old as I am (literally!), and has more than a few rust holes? It gets me where I need to go, without Atec and the boys having to come along. If I take care of it, it probably has 100k miles more in it. And you can't beat the price!

ATEC: We haven't taken any pictures of the truck yet, or named it - but we'll get on top of that. It's true that I'm grateful to not have to worry about Pmc getting where he needs to be anymore. I was perfectly willing to be a 1-car family as long as we needed to - but this was the perfect opportunity to upgrade, and I am very grateful for it! Life does have a certain balance to it these days that I just love. However, somehow we are just DYING to have that balance thrown off by the arrival of our little girl. Ok, actually - Pmc is the one who is so anxious. He keeps planning little Arc's due-date for a few weeks early. Sometimes he's even telling me he won't mind a bit if she comes now. I keep reminding him how she'll do so much better if she waits until she's full term, that it won't be much fun to have a baby in the NICU. He knows that, we saw that with our niece - but it doesn't seem to stop him from some strange hope for it! As for me, I still have way too much to do to hope she comes early! On top of that, I'm slowing down - needing more naps, taking longer to do things, struggling to help the boys with little things like tying their shoes, etc.

I guess that's it for now. We're trying out getting back to blogging together a little each week. We'll see if we can keep it up!

Cpc

Cpc has been up to some pretty fun stuff lately. We got these "shape" pages from storytime at the library, and he cut them all out himself. He only messed up one shape - cut right through the center of his circle. He was SO disappointed.

He is also finally picking up on the coloring thing - as in coloring in coloring books and such. Previously if you gave him a coloring book he just wasn't interested. He much preferred a plain piece of paper, or a lined piece of paper that he could write words on. Anyway, I love how he is starting to color specific things, like hair or hands and such. I also love how he underlined the words at first, but has started to color them now! He is really loving his primary class at church.

A few weeks ago (after finding a FANTASTIC homemade lemonade recipe) we decided to order a box of lemons with our Bountiful Basket and let Cpc make the lemonade and sell it. It's a fun recipe where you actually use the lemon peels, and it has oh such a wonderful flavor. Cpc worked so hard at peeling those lemons and helping mix up the lemonade. He even gave squeezing the lemon juice a pretty good go, it was pretty tough for those little hands! So, if any of you would like a batch of homemade lemonade concentrate - Cpc would be happy to sell it to you! All proceeds go to his horse-riding lessons!

For Mother's Day in our church they always do some little gift for all the women, and this year the primary kids got to give their mothers "wheat grass." I've unsuccessfully tried buying wheat grass in the past to use in smoothies, so I was a little nervous about using it. However, my first day I mixed up this little treat and we had it daily until our grass quit growing. Even Pmc liked it! I didn't really measure anything - but if you'd like to try it, here's the recipe. 10 ice cubes, 1 banana, some flax seed, some wheat grass, and some strawberry yogurt. I know - awesome on the details right? I have no idea how much I used of any of that, I just eyed it and managed to always have it turn out pretty tasty!

Cpc LOVES to shave with daddy!

Aren't these brothers so stinkin' cute. I can't believe how much these two have grown up, and grown to love each other lately. I LOVE having two boys so close. I hope they will always be the best of friends. Now that they are both mostly potty-trained, and the both get themselves dressed and undressed for the most part - I feel like I can manage a newborn! I love watching them play together and work out their little fights. They certainly do a lot of fighting, but they also really do a good job of treating each other with love and respect!

There is this thing I LOVE about living where we live. As soon as May hits, we get to enjoy some awesome music each Wednesday evening. It floats in through our windows and nourishes my soul. I presume I love this music so much because of the high school my family attended, so I heard lots of it over the years. Maybe not everyone loves bagpipes - but I sure do. And apparently Cpc does too. We walked across the street to listen to the music this week, and I really wanted to capture it, so I took the video of the boys while the musicians played.

Relaxation and Anxiety

We think we have found a connecting link between many of the issues Cpc deals with. Warning, what follows is probably TMI for most. But for our sakes I want to record it!

In the past two weeks we have finally been able to get him back to mostly dry underwear. We are so proud of how diligently he is trying. We're pretty sure he's dealing with a combination of bladder spasms (overactive bladder) and failure to completely empty his bladder. The latter being the only thing we can really do much about, it's been what we've been working on.

The thing is, the typical recommendation on this is to have him sit on the toilet for a while. Well, for months we thought this wasn't the issue, because even when we'd have him sit there for an hour he could pee his pants ten minutes later. However, I recently tried having him go potty, go do ten jumping jacks, and come back to go again. Ta-da! Then I discovered I can have him do this 6-7 times in a row and he can still get more out each time. Furthermore I discovered when he goes pee, he tightens his entire body, not just his bladder.

Back when he was having serious sleep issues we would get so frustrated because as soon as that "sleepy" feeling hit, he would tense up and wiggle his whole body. From a few months old he literally couldn't relax his body to go to sleep, even after hours of screaming, even when he was clearly exhausted. It wasn't until we gave him Melatonin for the first time that we saw his body relax before falling asleep.

His entire life, when he has gotten hurt and needs comfort, he won't let me cuddle him. At those times he just can't relax into a cuddle.

After playing hard for hours, he didn't ever just lay down with exhaustion to let his body recover.

When dealing with emotional struggles, he cannot relax his brain enough to work through them, with or without my help. Timeouts and laying in bed do not seem to help him remove himself from the situation enough to calm down. An emotionally turbulent situation can keep him upset for above an hour.

These are all things that have led us at times to wonder if he has Aspberger's. However, there are so many clear signals that this isn't the case. He LOVES cuddling at other times, he has lots of inflexion in his voice, he doesn't have some obsession with some topic, and he doesn't do any lining up toys or repetitious activities.

I am grateful to have found this connective link. With sleep and potty training, it has already helped us to identify ways to help him. We still have work to do on the potty training. He Stays dry most days if we don't count quiet time, and he stays dry from the time we put him to bed until we take him and Cdc potty before we go to bed. He's also stopped waking up soaked in the morning (which was happening no matter what diapering product we tried). Laundry has finally significantly decreased!

He clearly deals with quite a bit of anxiety. He has a hard time staying dry when we are getting ready for a trip, or while we are on them in certain situations. There are a lot of puzzle pieces there we are trying to put together. He also tells us he doesn't want to go to horse-riding even though he LOVES it. He seems to get pretty nervous about new people, or people he's not quite used to yet. He'll even act somewhat shy. At least this isn't too abnormal for his age!

We are proud of the progress he is making on this as we talk about it, and how he continues to push through his struggles!