Christmas Gifts to Jesus

I’m packing up the holiday stuff today. We have NEVER had the tree up this long. People who walk into our house are actually taken back to see an enormous tree still up and decorated.

 

It made me smile to reread our annual gifts to Jesus as I sorted through everything. For the coming year of 2014 we are giving:

 

Jacob: “be gooder” (not yell or hit)

Madison: “les ProBlems. (Stop! Pooshing)”

Ben: “more time in scripshers” (read daily)

Angie: “a softer voice at home”

 

Compare to last year:

 

Jacob: "Don't touch other peoples bodies. Play with friends one at a time so they feel special."

Madison: "PRAY for PeoPLe By NAMe FROM MMZ"

Ben: "be nice to Maddie and Jacob"

Angie: "Show my love by using a quiet, happy voice."

Brian: "Have more patience with my kids"

Sunday Dinner Lesson Review

Who went to get the brass plates?
Nephi, Laman, Lemuel and Salmon!!

Good Day for Mom

Today I did not submit insurance claims.

I did not attach the mountain of mess in the office.

 

Instead I went to yoga. Came home and played with Ashlyn for about two hours and had her giggling and read her a book or two and played quiz games about her feet and nose and ears and such. She's such a delightful smiley little bundle of happiness.

I repaired a high heel shoe at school with masking tape when the entire bottom came unglued then went to lunch in the cafeteria with my style conscious Madison Mae.

Went to recess and played basketball with Maddie and her cute little girl friends.

Walked her to music class where I joined Ben in his lunchroom. He told me about his day and explained what kind of cards the boys were trading at the lunch tables. Then I arm wrestled some darn strong third grade boys.

Visited Ben's art room to see his cool bowl project he's been working on for a while and telling me all about so I could tell it was a big deal. It really does look awesome.

Then I told him I could play tag with him at recess because I played basketball with Maddie and he laughed at me. Silly Mom, he doesn't play tag anymore, that's so last month. He practices soccer by kicking a ball against the kindergarten wall. Since I only had flip flops on today, we settled for a game of ping pong in the Intermediate School Lobby. Someone came by near the end of recess and asked who was winning...we both laughed, "We don't know!" We hadn't even thought to keep score. We were having such a great time.

When the bell rang he went off to art class to finish his African bowl and I headed home. Jake arrived shortly after my return from a play date with his best buddy. The mom warned me he was getting cranky and just wanted to lay on the couch. She said he reported about school, "I had a good day at the start, but then it got bad at the end part."

So I cuddled my little boy who is not so little anymore and asked him about his day. The first part was good, but then Kaiden called him "stinky" and the day was bad after that. His lip puckered out and his head sunk down as his shoulders did his classic sad posture. I assured him that he wasn't stinky and that I loved him lots and lots. Keeping his body slumped in the deflated position he looked up at me, thoughtfully, over the rim of his glasses and after a minute he asked, "Do you love all of me, even every single one of my teeth?" Then the smile broke through.

I tickled his tummy and we counted every single one of his teeth to which he proclaimed, "That's a lot of teeth! You love me a lot!"

Then I took my cute little man upstairs and snuggled him on the futon couch while he drifted off to sleep to rest his body so he wouldn't be sad anymore. And I drifted off too for about ten minutes of a power nap.

Not so very long later it was time for a surprisingly pleasant day of homework with Ben at the kitchen table, then pickup Madison from swimming and hear all about how tiring it is to swim from one side of the pool all the way to the other side. We got her a snack and headed to her second violin lesson.

Violin I thought went well, but she said it was worse than last week because the teacher made her work. Go figure. She's seeming to enjoy it most of the time though so I'm not worried.

After dinner everyone changed into pajamas and brushed their teeth and came to family scripture time and prayers and then even tidied up the play room without a single tear.

Oh yeah, Brian is good too. He helped the kids put the wheels on their pinewood derby cars and held down the fort while I was at violin and tutored the neighbor in chemistry for a test tomorrow and got the kids dressed this morning and breakfast. Super dad is now, at 10pm, prepping for a birthday party magic show he donated to the school auction for the PTA.

It was a great day today with my cute family. So grateful they are mine. Each one is such a blessing and a joy.

My Mask

This is the mask my kids made me today. Maddie made the paper part and Ben made a chain of elastics so I could wear it.

Ashlyn Comments

Jacob held Ashlyn the first time and after just a couple minutes he commented in alarm, "Mom, where are her glasses? She can't see ANYTHING!" Such is the perspective of the kids in my house. We'll take her in to the eye doctor in a few months and see if she got my eyes or daddy's eyes. I'm praying at least one of our kids got daddy's eyes.

Ben thought she had teeny, tiny everything. Tiny fingernails, tiny head. She sticks out her tongue a lot. He claims he got the first kiss she ever gave away when she licked his face.  He loves to hold her and look at her.

Maddie thinks Ashlyn has a little bit of hair and her eyes are small. She loves to hold her little sister and tell everyone who will listen about her.  She says Ashlyn tries to grab her glasses already. She wanted to take a picture into her school class to show her off to all her friends. 

Here is an email excerpt from my email conversation with her teacher I thought was hilarious.

Kiran,

Sorry we weren’t organized enough to send pictures of the baby on Monday. She was still in the hospital so the weekend didn’t quite go as planned. And our printer wasn’t working well. Brian said he could print them at work. I laughed so hard when he brought home near poster sized prints last night. I guess he was working on another project and forgot to change the paper size. Once it was done he figured why reprint.

Ashlyn was released from the NICU yesterday morning (Monday) so Maddie finally got to meet her in the afternoon. She was so pleased to have a sister and loved holding her so much she didn’t want to go on any play dates at all but wanted everyone to come to our house to show her off.

Angie

Hi Angie,

Ashlyn’s pictures were such a big hitJ We have put them up if that is ok. Yes Maddie is proud. I told her I am sure she’ll make a super big sister.

She is also thrilled to have a helper-she said she does not have to help with the laundry anymore-hilarious!! I asked her what she did instead..I teased her-do you sit and have a cup of tea instead? She said NO that’s for grown ups!! Then I said I bet you help mom look after Ashlyn instead and she said yes.

Kiran

First Hospital Visit

Brian just arrived at the hospital with the kids to visit me. They all stared at the IV in my hand looking a little scared so we explained it simply. Maddie's next question was "Are we allowed to play games on your phone while we are here?" I think she obviously really missed me.

We asked if they want to go see the baby and they smiled. Since baby will be in NICU for one to two days until she is breathing better they can't really see much and can't go in. Brian offered to tell them the sex but Ben covered his ears. He wanted to see the baby first. Maddie was sworn to secrecy and her smile went from ear to eat when she heard she finally had a sister!!

Baby Coming Soon - Boy or Girl??

We report to the hospital at 5:30 am to prep for 8:00 am surgery. Details coming soon. We're all anxious to know if it's a boy or girl. The bets are in from our clan.

Brian - girl, because he cheated and watched the ultrasound when the doctor said to look away if we really didn't want to find out. He looked the entire time and from his own expert conclusion figured he couldn't make out any details to point otherwise. Of course, we also both concur that we wouldn't have been able to tell with Ben or Jacob either on those fuzzy ultrasound screens.

Angie - girl, because it just feels like it's gotta be a girl

Ben - girl, because keeps a pattern - boy dad, girl mom, boy ben, girl maddie, boy jacob, must be a girl this time. I'm thinking he has a touch of the Robinson obsession for fairness down to the penny and my OCD on patterns and numbers. It's in the blood.

Maddie - girl, because she needs a sister more than anything in the world. It's taken many months but we have her finally resigned to love the baby even if God does see fit to send us a boy.

Jacob - boy, it will no longer be a yittle boy fluffy doggie. That's progress. Down side is that it won't have feet or legs. We're working one step at a time here to get the right picture in his mind. Hopefully it will all be clear when they meet tomorrow night.

Kathi Neilson - ??  She's the only one on the planet that knows the surprise. Don't be mad. She begged for months for me to find out. She needed to buy something inparticular that she can only get in Singapore before ExxonMobil moved them home to Houston, Texas in December. I had the doctor write it down and seal it in an envelope and gave it to her.

Are you mad? Yeah, I thought you would be knowing that someone knew and YOU didn't. That's why we didn't tell anyone she knew until this week. Don't worry. We don't know either and today I'm thinking it's really all kinda funny. As far as I know she hasn't told a soul.

Funny story on the special baby gift though. I hid the wrapped gift, sort of. I tossed it in the office in a box of paperwork that I wasn't ever going to get around to unpacking so that I would NEVER see it and not be tempted. Well, then we hired Gina. And I've gotten lots of boxes unpacked I hadn't figured I'd ever get around to working on.

For some reason Maddie decided to rummage through the box with the gift. She came running up to me, package in hand, fingers already underneath the edge of the paper ready to rip iit open. "LOOK MOM!!! We forgot to open this one!" "NOOOOO!!!!" I yelled almost in slow motion begging her to stop pulling at the edge that was beginning to rip. "Don't you DARE open that present!" I bellowed at her.

Poor girl was so startled by my response she looked scared. I have no idea how I got out of the situation without revealing the real reason she couldn't open said present. Heaven sakes I probably lied that it was for someone else. I don't know but it worked and she didn't open it. Crisis averted. Though the devil on my left shoulder was pouting at the angel on my right shoulder and calling her a party pooper and kill joy. Half of me wished she'd ruined it so I could just KNOW.

Tomorrow we shall know.  Care to register a guess before we find out?

Another One Bites the Dust

Something told me to take this picture of Maddie before I tried to fix the glasses for the ten zillionth time. She looks hilarious with them bent so far out of shape but never complains or wants them fixed. Almost before I started reshaping them the metal fatigued. We are down to the backup purple pair with five weeks until her next checkup where I can get a new prescription.

Same story with Ben only his should have been a warranty repair. Mailed them back to the states with a ten day shipping postmarked Jan 6. Still haven't arrived...I don't hold out much hope since they are over a month late now. I paid $8 to ship uninsured. Other option was $54 with insurance. Double that to get it back and it was the same cost as a brand new pair so I chose to play the odd. Looks like I lose this round.

Jake. Now that's a good story I don't have the patience to blog from my phone. Maybe when I have a minute to sit at the computer. Let's just say it involved multiple trips to the store, tantrums, lots of tears, some full body wrestling, a pregnant lady chasing him down the street when he made a fast escape and he now has a neon orange pair of specs but he is willing to wear them to I conceded a loss on color.

Here's hoping the baby is the first with a good set of peepers. Someone ought to take after daddy!