Little Feet

I love these feet!
And the boys that belong to them.

Good Intentions

I usually enjoy cooking dinner. I like trying new recipes and the actual cooking part is nice, too. I like eating with my family. It's wonderful to have John home and to all sit down together. Right now, I'm kind of in a slump. It's not so fun to plan and prepare our food. And it's kind of hard to enjoy the meal itself. Jonah insists on feeding himself(which is VERY messy), something usually gets spilt, and the big boys get distracted and end up playing games instead of eating.

So last Friday, I decided to do something different. I dug into our wedding gifts, and found a pretty set of candlesticks. Our kitchen table is very small, so I chose to use only one of them. The kids and I were excited to sit down to dinner by candlelight. Max was a little nervous about the flame, but he gradually relaxed. John and I cautioned the boys to not touch the candle or the candlestick, and they obeyed all through the meal. After dinner, John helped me to clear the table and to start doing the dishes. Jonah and Bentley were no longer in the room, but Max was finishing the last little bit of his dinner (so the worms wouldn't get it). John was at the sink, washing dishes, and I was putting the milk in the fridge when we heard a crash. Max had tried to touch the candle and in the process he knocked over and broke the candlestick. I had been worried about the flame. It hadn't occured to me that the candlestick was in danger. Luckily, Maxwell wasn't hurt by the broken glass or the fire, just a little scared.

My intent had been to make dinner special. I'm not sure I'd use the word "special" to describe that evening, but it's one we won't forget any time soon. :)

SuperMax

Last night Maxwell and I went grocery shopping. I offered to get one of the cool red car grocery carts, but he wanted to walk. When Bentley was 2, he waved and spoke to people in each aisle. Maxwell prefers to pretend the other people don't exist. He's VERY shy. Unfortunately, he's also very cute, and people like to talk to him or about him. Last night, he tagged along beside me, wearing his Superman cape and looking pretty cute. Several people tried to smile at him, but he didn't make eye contact. Other people told me how sweet he looked, and after we were past them, Maxwell would ask me "Why did they SAY that, mommy?"

At the checkout, the man bagging our groceries tried to make conversation with Maxwell: "Are you Superman?" (ignored) "Are you going to fly these groceries out to your mom's car?" (Max looked at the ground and frowned) "That's a nice cape." Max points a finger at the man and makes shooting noises. The nice man is unaware that he's just been vaporized and asks, "Is that how you fly?" Max shot him again, and then turned away, ending further conversation attempts. Our man of steel is a man of few words. Especially when it comes to strangers at the grocery store. And I guess as a mom, I'm supposed to be telling him not to talk to strangers, so maybe he's got it right after all.

Son up to son down

My mom and my sister gave me this sign about a year ago. It's mostly a true statement. These little boys are a lot of work and it's pretty much constant. I love this mom stuff, but there are some things I didn't think about when I pictured life as a Mom.

Like teething. In the last week, Jonah has gotten two new teeth. That means he's been a little cranky and sleeping poorly. It looks like tooth number 5 is pretty close to coming in as well. Fortunately, he's really cute. :)

And fighting. (although I should have seen this one coming because my sister and I fought all the time) Bentley and Maxwell are best friends, but they fight a lot. Last week I took them to the the grocery store and they fought the entire time. We got one of those carts with the car in front for the kids to sit in. They ended up slugging each other, so I made one get out. That helped a little, but no matter which one was walking, he would taunt the one who "had" to ride.

The sign should say "the mother AND FATHER" of little boys work from son up until son down. John is amazing. This morning, John got up with the boys at 7, and I got to sleep in until nearly 9 o'clock! On a week day! It was wonderful. It's funny how much I value sleep these days. I spent the first 23 years of my life trying to sleep as little as possible - and it was ok. Now that I'm unable to sleep when I want to, I'm wishing that I'd slept a little more when I was younger. (My parents wished that every day while I was at home. I was a night owl and my sister - two years younger than me- was a morning person. Between the two of us they didn't get any sleep!)

Anyway, having kids is work, but I think it's the best kind of work in the world.

Silliness: Day Two

Today was part two of Spontaneous Delight. We took the lid off the popcorn popper and watched popcorn fly out. We acted out silly songs and read silly books. At the end of the day, the other moms came to Joy School to finger paint with shaving cream. Maxwell was a little unsure, but by the end he was having fun.
Bentley, in typical Bentley fashion, dove right in.

He had a blast until he accidentally got some shaving cream on his mouth. "Yuck!"

Once we wiped his mouth off, he was happy again.

The idea was for the moms to have fun and to be silly with their kids. We all had our own pile of shaving cream. This is what the counter and the kitchen looked like when we were finished.

P.S. to "About Worms"

Maxwell doesn't like to share his food with the worms. One night he watched John feed his leftover food to the worms, and it seems to have been fairly traumatic. Now he does his best to completely clear his plate, because he doesn't want the worms to eat his food.

As a second p.s. - I fed the worms last week! :)

Silliness

Joy School was at our house today. The theme for the week is Spontaneous Delight - which means we do a lot of silly things. We played with balloons, popped out of a box, shook hands with a door, and hid under a laundry basket. The kids loved it all. After that, we blew mountains of bubbles.
We used our toes to paint. After the kids went home, Jonah got to play in the balloons. (closely supervised of course) :)

Not the Mailman

Today I'm glad I'm not a mailman. The mailboxes in our neighborhood are on the houses, so the mailman (or mail person) has to walk from home to home instead of riding around in his truck. (Actually, there are one or two of them that speed from home to home in the truck, and then sprint up to each house and back to the truck. I'm not sure it saves time, but I guess it keeps them out of weather like this.) Today our nice mailman was out delivering mail in this storm. He said it looks worse than it is, but I'm not so sure. Bentley loves going outside to play in rain or snow. He likes to splash in puddles when it's raining, and to fall on the ground and roll around in the snow.
Maxwell, on the other hand, would usually rather be inside, where he can be warm and dry. He suprised us today when he asked if he could go out and play (which for him is walking carfully down the driveway and back to the house) in the snow.
Unfortunately, John and Bentley had just come IN from playing in the snow, so John got to bundle up and go back out with Max. What a good dad.

Window Tradition

Our living room window has a great view of the mountains. I like to watch the mountain change throughout the year. Right now, the mountains are covered in snow. This spring, the bottom half will turn green as the valley comes alive. In the fall, we watch the orange, red, and yellows creep down the mountain until our street is dressed for autumn.

In the last few months, we've started a new tradition at our window. Every morning, the boys and I gather at the window and we watch John drive away to work. We all wave, and the boys stay at the window to see Dad "one more time" as his car rounds the corner a block away.

One Saturday, as I left for the grocery store, I was surpised to see John and the boys at the window, waving goodbye. It made me want to run back into the house to hug them all. Now, whenever any of us leaves, the rest of us drop what we're doing and go to our window to wave goodbye. It's a fun tradition, but even better than waving goodbye to John is welcoming him home each evening. Tonight when he comes from work, he'll get to stay home for three days! Hooray!

Peekaboo!

About Worms

Worms eat our garbage. It's something John has been wanting to try for a while now. I bought him the book last summer, he bought the container, and he got the worms from his Mom for Christmas this year. The worm bin sits downstairs in the laundry room. We save our food scraps and then John empties them into the worm bin, where the worms eat them. We'll use the worm stuff in our garden this spring. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing because worms are a little scary for me. But it hasn't been bad. The worm bin doesn't smell, and all I have to do is save our food scraps. Oh, and hope that the boys never figure out that they could get into the thing and chase me around the house with the scary worms.

My Valentine

Valentines

Bentley and Maxwell have been working on their Valentines off and on for the last month. We thought we had lots of time, but here we are, racing to get their Valentines ready for Bentley's Joy School party tomorrow. Bentley is writing his name on each one all by himself. Maxwell decorated his Valentines in his own unique way. Tomorrow they'll collect Valentines from their friends and eat lots of candy. What a great holiday!

A Day of Rest?

Church with our three boys is never boring. By the time Sacrament meeting is over, I feel like I've had a workout. The next two hours of primary with some 50 children looks better than the hour I've just spent with my own. Jonah is always restless, while Bentley and Maxwell are usually loud, goofy, or just plain difficult. Today was one of our better days, but it was not without it's entertaining moments (entertaining - or obnoxious - to the people sitting near us, not to John or me!). We were late (big surprise) so we ended up sitting on the folding chairs in the gym. That's always bad because it gives the boys that much more room to run. Plus, the chairs and the wood floor are a lot noisier than the carpet and the padded benches in the chapel. The usual things happened: dropped markers, climbing under chairs, mad dashes for the door, dancing in the gym, fighting over coloring books, and fighting over which boy gets to sit where.

Finally the boys were quiet for a minute. I had asked Bentley to set a good example for his little brothers. And he did, for a minute. But then he noticed that Jonah wasn't watching him. Bentley tried placing himself in Jonah's line of sight, and when that didn't work, he stood up in front of us (with his arms folded of course), moved back and forth to try to catch Jonah's eye, and said "Jonah, look at me! LOOK at me!" When I asked him to sit down and be quiet, he said, "But I'm trying to show Jonah how to be reverent!" I'm pretty sure that's NOT the way to do it.

I need ONE more thing

This is Maxwell about a year ago, sleeping with his friend, Elmo.

Last night, Maxwell slept with-

• Batman
• Woody
• Jessie
• Buzz Lightyear
• an orange safety cone
• a brown crocodile
• a green crocodile
• Clancy the bear (who is as big as Max)
• a very small soccer ball

I like pizza

I baked a frozen pizza for lunch today. It's fast, easy, and the kids love pizza. Especially Jonah. He typically eats as much as his big brothers, and often eats more than they do. I cut his pizza into little bites, drop them on his tray, and he's happy for the next ten minutes. What more could a mom ask for?

Computer Boy Bentley

Bentley has been "helping" his Dad play computer games since he was a newborn. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that one of his favorite things to do now is to play computer games. He's the Power Ranger champion at our house . Bentley is an expert at rescuing Tommy (the black power ranger) from the evil Dr. Mercer. He's not selfish, though. When Bentley gets to an easy part he calls Maxwell (or me) over and lets him (or me) push the space bar or "x" to kick a wall. Then he cheers, "Good job! You did it!" And it's Bentley's turn again.

Curious George

A year ago my brother, Moose, introduced the boys and I to Jack Johnson. We love his music and just discovered this Curious George video on his website. (Click on bonus videos)

I can do it mineself!

This morning (like almost every morning) Bentley and Maxwell were told that it was time to get dressed. Bentley wanted help (even though he's been dressing himself for at least a year), and Maxwell (who could really use a little help) wanted to do it himself! Here's the result:

Bop Bags

I took the boys to the doctor this morning. Max and Jonah are sick again, poor kids. We stopped by Target to get their prescriptions filled, and while we were waiting, we saw these "Bop Bags." Each of the "big boys" picked one out (Jonah got a bath toy). The boys are really excited to have something to punch, and I'm happy that (at least for now) they aren't punching each other.

Batman Begins

Last summer, when Bentley was potty training, he got a Batman doll for one of his rewards. He quickly forgot about the Batman until sometime in December, when Maxwell discovered it. After two months of constant fighting over Batman, John and I decided to find another one. I packed all three boys up, and went to Toys R Us. We searched the entire store, but couldn't find another ugly Batman doll. Luckily, we were able to buy one on Amazon. Hooray for the internet! We endured one more week of the Batman wars, and then the UPS man delivered Maxwell's Batman. There is peace in our home once again - thanks to Batman.

Or so I thought. While Bentley and Maxwell were busy playing one afternoon, I found Jonah chewing on a Batman. Maybe I should have ordered two!

Bentley on Wheels

Last night our family went roller skating. It's been six years since John and I have gone skating, and none of our boys had ever been before. We rented a pair of skates like these for Maxwell, but he preferred to watch everyone else fall down instead of doing it himself. Bentley was great. He was excited to put on the skates and to start moving. He fell down almost every time he tried to take a step, but he kept trying. The rink has a kids corner, and he hung out over there for a little while, but he liked the carpet better (I think it hurt less than the hard floor when he fell down) so he kept wandering out to the other areas. He decided that the fastest way to move with the skates on his feet was to crawl on his hands and knees. We told him he could take the skates off, but he didn't want to. By the end of the night, he could walk in the skates without falling down! Jonah liked the music and the funky lights. All in all, I think everyone had a great time. The boys can't wait to go back.