the waiting room

Yesterday Bentley woke up with a fever, and complained about his neck and ears hurting. A few months ago his ear drum ruptured, and that made me worried enough to call the doctor today, instead of waiting a few more days. I'm so glad we went in because he has strep throat and an infection in each ear. Now that he's on medication, he's a lot happier. He wasn't very happy AT the doctor today, though. Normally, we only wait 5-10 minutes to see our doctor. Today they had some crisis that set their appointments way back. It took over an hour just for us to get into an exam room, and then we had to wait a little longer. The doctor's office is usually the place my children behave the worst, but they were so good today - at least by our standards. Bentley stretched out on the floor to watch Toy Story 2. His Tylenol ran out halfway through The Waiting, so he was pretty miserable.
Maxwell climbed up on a table where he stayed glued to the tv, and Jonah roamed around the office, climbing up and down things. Under the circumstances, they were VERY GOOD.

The long awaited day

For the past year, Maxwell has watched Bentley at gymnastics, and asked each time if it was his turn to go in. Today was his turn! He did great! The teacher told them to go in and sit on their favorite color - he did and didn't move until she told them to sit at the lemonade wall. He was so excited and not scared at all.
Sorry about the glare on the pictures, I took them through the viewing window. I love this one despite the terrible glare because he just tore around the gym when it was time to run laps. He loved it!

Back to the Gym

Today Bentley started his fall semester at The Little Gym. He's taking a class called Sports Skills, so he'll learn about other sports while he gets to do gymnastics. Today they practiced throwing the ball with one hand and stepping with the opposite foot. His assignment for the next week is to play catch.

Maxwell and Jonah are back to "spectating," at least for one hour each week. Maxwell starts his Funny Bugs gymnastics class on Saturday. Poor Jonah gets to watch for a good two years before he'll be old enough to take classes by himself. It's hard for him because he really wants to play.

6 years!!!

Happy Birthday Maxwell!

newborn Maxwell
Maxwell's 1st Birthday
Maxwell's 2nd Birthday
Maxwell is 3 now!

Happy Birthday Maxwell!

We love you!

Dear Spencer,

Hey little brother! Thanks so much for teaching Bentley and Maxwell how to play "heads or tails" the last time you were here. They love it. In fact, they play it all the time. I've found coins all over the house and I'm pretty sure their piggy banks are now empty.

Bentley has a pretty good understanding of the game, and he won't take "no" or "in a minute" for an answer when he wants to play. He follows me around the house asking, "heads or tails, mom? heads or tails, mom?"

Maxwell, on the other hand, cheats every time. The game goes kind of like this,
Max: "heads or tails, mom?"
Mom: "um, heads?"
Max: "no, you're wrong! it's tails. guess again!"
Mom: "ok, tails?"
Max: "no, you're wrong! it's heads, I win! guess again!"
. . . and on and on and on . . .
Most of the time he doesn't even look at the coin.

Then there are the times when they play together. Like many games, that usually ends with the boys screaming and wrestling on the floor.

So Spencer, thanks again for spending some time with Bentley and Maxwell and teaching them such fun games. :)
Love you,
Jenny

Primary

I love primary and I'm grateful to serve there. I'm learning so much and I love being around the children. However, between a few rowdy children, some "no show" teachers, disputes between teachers, and my own children, I often come home from church feeling totally worn out. I haven't gone to the lengths that the teacher in this cartoon has, but I can sympathize. :)

Cereal Sharing

Jonah doesn't communicate with a lot of words, but he has other verbal cues to tell us what he wants. Here's a video of him asking Maxwell to give him a bite of cereal. He makes the same noise at church when he sees the sacrament trays.

Silly Kids

We spent the morning at my friend Stacy's house. Her three children are about the same ages as my three boys, so everyone has fun when we do that. The four older kids think they are the funniest things ever. Instead of eating lunch they told each other nonsense jokes and laughed and laughed and laughed. Here's Bentley with two of his friends.

10:20 pm

Bentley asleep . . .
Maxwell asleep . . .
and Jonah, too.

Aren't they sweet?

10:20 am

Bentley plays his Clifford phonic game on the computer.
Maxwell finishes breakfast #2.
Jonah plays with pans while waiting for Mom to get him dressed.

Playgroup

Today was beautiful, so the boys were excited to go to the park for our ward's weekly playgroup. Here they are with their friend, Diana.
It was cool enough that they were able to talk me into pushing them on the swings. Bentley asks for "underdogs," Maxwell asks for "hundred-dogs," and Jonah just wants to keep moving. They all like to go HIGHER!
Speaking of "higher," Jonah likes to climb up to the highest slide. He used to love going down that slide (feet first and on his stomach), but a few weeks ago his t-shirt came up and his tummy stuck to the slide. He was stuck in the middle of the slide until Bentley climbed up and pulled him down. Since then, Jonah climbs up the stairs, and then comes right back down. I dressed him in a one piece outfit today so that he could safely slide, but he wasn't taking any chances. :)

Shade Sale

I went to their last sale and found some great shirts. They're also having some good sales on their website right now. I really like their maternity baby tee - it's great.

http://www.shadeclothing.com/

I'm Glad I'm a Boy

Today Bentley asked me if I thought daddy's or mommy's are more important. I asked him what he thought and he said, "Well, daddy's go to work, pass the sacrament, get the priesthood, and they're in charge of the whole family. All mommy's get to do is have babies and work." So I asked Bentley if he didn't think mom jobs were as important as dad jobs. He didn't, and ended the discussion with the statement, "I'm glad I'm a boy."

A New Love

Recently, my sister told me about some new chocolate ice cream that she'd tried and liked. I picked some up at Target this week and I'm hooked. It's Haagen-Dazs new Mayan Chocolate ice cream and I could eat it (along with some pizza) for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the pregnancy necessitated snacks in between, before, and after those main meals. Here's the official description, " inspired by the original chocolate crafted by the Mayans more than 2500 years ago, we blend rich dark chocolate with a hint of cinnamon for a magical Mayan offering." YUM!

Swimming - last day!

Before swimming, the boys had a snack. Here Maxwell shares his yogurt with Jonah.
Bentley is finished with this year's swimming lessons!

Congratulations Bentley!

Swimming Day 8

"Funny Glasses Man" gets ready for swimming lessons, where his secret identity got to swim in the deep end with no life jacket!
He was pretty nervous, but did great.
He shouted "I'm in the deepest end ever!"

(notice the 4 ft marking)
Jonah is resigned to half an hour in the stroller. He and Maxwell shared fruit snacks and read books.
Jonah was ready for his nap today. He likes to sleep with this ball. What a sweetie.

Swimming Day 7

Bentley practiced floating on his back today, as well as swimming.
He loves it! Here's a link to a video of Bentley swimming!
Jonah and Maxwell were stuck in the stroller again today, but they had candy, so they didn't mind too much. :)

Family Home Evening

For Family Home Evening our family went to the Bean Museum at BYU with some of our friends. The kids love it, and it's free, so we love it.
Here are Jonah and John with a lion. Jonah loved the museum. You can see a video of Jonah at the museum here. He ran around pointing and shouting most of the time we were there.
Maxwell kept asking, "is it dead?" He was a little nervous about so many scary animals, but by the end he'd relaxed a little. Here he is with Bentley.
I'm five months pregnant this week. Here's a shot of me with Jonah and our friend.
Bentley discovered that if he blew hard enough, he could get the fur on the bears to move! Here he is teaching Maxwell the trick.

After the museum, we went to the BYU Creamery for ice cream. It sounded like a good idea, but I didn't think about how messy it would be. Click here to see pictures of three boys eating ice cream.

Swimming - Day 6

I tried a new tactic at swimming today - Jonah was belted into the stroller. It worked nicely, because I was able to turn the stroller to keep him out of the sun, I brought snacks, water, and books. Maxwell was free to play near us or sit in the stroller, and he chose to sit and listen to me read the books most of the time. Jonah wasn't really happy about the situation, but complaining was kept to a minimum, so I was happy.
Bentley and his class had to sit on the side of the pool when it wasn't their turn to swim because they wouldn't stay near the side when they were in the water. Bentley found ways to be goofy both in and out of the pool.
When it was his turn he showed a lot of improvement. The teacher didn't hold the noodle, and Bentley was able to swim forward by himself. Later, he swam without the noodle. He was so excited! He kept shouting to us, "Maxwell, did you see me swim? I was swimming! Mom, I was swimming!" I'm so glad he's having a good experience and learning these skills. He won't be a swimmer by the end of the week, but he's come a long way and I'm proud of him for trying so hard and being so brave.

Construction Worker?

The men still aren't finished working on our roads. They have moved around the corner so the boys don't have a front row seat any longer. Bentley and his Dad took these pictures on their way home from church today. He told his Aunt Mindy that he wants to be a bus driver, so as good as he looks on these machines, Bentley's hoping for a bus one day. :)

No Worries

For each of our babies, I buy a new outfit for them wear home from the hospital. Usually, I look my entire pregnancy, trying to find a cute unisex outfit. And usually, I start wishing I knew whether the baby was a boy or a girl, because it is soooo hard to find something I like. The easy solution would probably be to buy two outfits, one for a girl and one for a boy, but I really want just one special outfit for my baby. I like Classic Pooh (the baby's quitl is Classic Pooh), and this week I found this cute gift set at Target online. Yesterday I went to Target and they had ONE unisex giftset and a bunch of pink and blue ones. I bought this for our baby, and now I can relax knowing my baby has something to wear home.

Fishy in a Basket

At the end of his swimming lesson today, Bentley's class played "Fishy in a Basket." That game was probably his favorite part of swimming lessons last year and he'd been hoping to play it again. Bentley got to be the fish in the basket first.
The teacher and the other kids walk around him, chanting, "fishy in a basket, fishy in a basket, how're you going to get out? how're you going to get out? can't go over, have to go under!"
Last year, Bentley would try not to go under to get out, but he went all the way under today!
And he got out of the basket!