Ethanator

I feel like Ethan sometimes gets the short end of the stick being the oldest and only boy. He is one of the greatest kids ever though and deserves his own post. Ethan is a really smart and good boy. While I'm glad that he's smart I'm even happier that he is innately good. He is a very deep thinker and loves to have lengthy and in depth conversations. The only down side is that he loves to jump right in on your conversation sometimes when he really has no idea what you are talking about.
The above picture was actually this summer. I was cutting his hair and suddenly decided to make it into a mohawk. I tease him relentlessly and tell him how that's really good for him and I'm actually doing him a favor because it makes him have a strong character :) He is a good sport about it and now almost no matter what I say he just says "Mom, I know your teasing".
This was him being silly on the way into the city at Christmas time.
This was obviously in front of the tree at Rockefeller Center. Eth thought it was really fun to watch the skaters down below. The funny thing about that Santa hat was apparently it was the thing to do this winter was to wear a santa hat every day to school. If you know me it wasn't my favorite thing but I do occasionally choose my battles. The funny thing is for whatever reason Ethan is anti NY or NJ. If he ever has occasion to choose say NY Giants he will opt for the Dallas cowboys. Funny boy.
Ethan still loves legos and got quite a few more for Christmas so this Sunday after noon he put together this Empire state building.
Ethan is a very determined kid and decided he was going to get some more exercise this winter and a in this week he walked 15 miles in 5 days. The cute thing about it is we had a lengthy discussion about how it's important to set a goal and reach it etc. All his doing.
This was his pine wood derby car he designed himself called "lightning Bolt". He is still very much a Harry Potter fan and is about half way through the 7th book. For Christmas I got him the percy Jackson books and now all he talks about is Demi Gods and things like that.

Ethan is so sweet and never misses a day saying his prayers. He fasts every fast Sunday and on his very own will decide who he is fasting for and most often it is a family member who is struggling in one way or another. He is reading The Book of Mormon every day too. His primary teacher has challenged them to read the whole thing this year! While it's a crazy high goal to set i think he just may do it.

The other night I was talking to Anna about her baptism and asking her who's example we are following when we are baptized? I was thinking she would say something like "Jesus", but she said "Ethan's". I though that was pretty cute. Makes me crazy to think how fast he is growing up. His feet are now the same size as mine, and I'm thinking in another year or two he will be as tall as I am.

Calling All Grandmas

This post is basically for me and the Grandma's in Kate's life who love her artwork. I don't know how to rotate the pictures on this computer yet, sorry. I've mentioned often how creative Kate is and it's so fun to see her art evolving. She even makes sculptures with random things around the house. She even made an amazing fish with play dough recently but I didn't get a picture of it.
This is of the family
Family again
Self portrait
I actually LOVE this one. Does it not look picasso-esque?
For the longest time the letters in the bottom corner were her signature. No joke that was the thing she would write every single time. I can see a T, A, i, a. Now you know why her writing her name was such a big deal
This was also one of my favorite's. She drew this one on a lunch sack.
See her "signature" again? Too cute.
Love this one. She recently evolved from Christmas trees at Christmas time to having every dress look like a Christmas tree.


She drew this one the other day and she had been upset with me. I thought she was mad but asked her what it was and she said "I miss Grandma". Good thing we have grandma coming to visit soon.
I was amazed at this one. This is probably the first one that she included her glasses. If I were to wax philosophical I would think that she is finally accepting the glasses to be part of her. She recently has started wearing them full-time without begging or reminders. It's awesome.

I'm trying to decide if I should just let her enjoy her art or if I should look into some sort of creative arts class for her...your thoughts?

We've got spirit-no we don't!

This week Kate was invited to a Valentine Tea Party with a little girl from the ward. She was so excited! It was one of those times I almost wish I hadn't told her about it until the morning of. As soon as the invitation was opened she was asking every ten minutes, "Is it today? How many sleeps? Is it today?" I was going a little bit crazy but glad that she had something so fun to look forward to. She want to be sure to wear a dress because that is obvious tea party attire.
On another note, last week at the elementary school was "spirit week". What does dressing up with weird themes have to do with school spirit? I don't know and I don't care. Actually, I hate it. Every day it was just more tears and craziness. I guess I'm realizing that I am not a fun person. I think wearing pajamas to school is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. I think it's gross, and weird and frumpy and well weird. I was never one of those people that wore pajamas in high school or college, or ...to Walmart(I had to add that one). I insisted after pajama day that Anna wash her pajamas even though I had freshly washed them so she could wear them to school in the first place. She could not understand why I would need to do that. She figured she was already for bed so why change from 1 set of pajamas to another. I told her I had just washed her sheets that day and was not about to have her sleep in her clothes/pajamas from school that she had played in outside, sat in the lunch room, who knows what, then into her clean sheets.

Then there was "wacky" day. Which in my mind wacky is synonymous with weird. I actually thought this day might be kind of fun so I had a hair-do in mind for Anna. I started doing it and it was just too "wacky" for her liking. I asked her what she wanted instead and she said two braids that are braided differently. Well, that's pretty darn wacky! Can you tell my kids are control freaks just like me? So in my craziness and with it being wacky day and all I took it upon myself when doing her braids to put one high and one low. When Anna realized what I had done, it wasn't pretty. She completely fell apart. Apparently too wacky, yet again. I had to time her out for all of her screaming. After she finally calmed down with barely enough time to eat, I pulled the higher pony tail down to make it "at the same level", at Anna's request, but then all that did in her mind was make that braid loser. Basically by the time the kids left the house at 8am I was ready to crawl back in bed and call it a day. I had even pulled Ethan's hair up into 4 little ponytails in the middle to make it a mohawk. He was really nervous about it but went with it. When he came home though he told me that every body just thought he looked either like a girl or a baby.
We also had a era's day where they could dress up and that one wasn't too painful thankfully. The last day was swap day where the kids dressed like adults and the adults kids. Anna was So excited for this. She wanted to dress up like her teacher Mrs. W. I think she really just wanted to wear make up.
I knew her eyelashes were long but boy are they LONG! She looked so pretty after she stopped crying from me curling her lashes with the eye lash curler as requested. The funniest part of that day was the shirt she had picked out as her adult shirt was a glittery girl ballerina. Finally with a little convincing she wore a white collared shirt and an argyle sweater. Did I mention I hate spirit week? Most exhausting week ever.
One more picture of Kate with her valentine invite that she carried with her for days. She came home from the party with a helium balloon, drew a picture on it and it has been her best friend ever since.

My Valentine Date

Last week was restaurant week in NYC so we thought we should take advantage and go to dinner with some friends of ours. My girlfriend Erica's husband and Rand were already going to be working in the city so we decided to meet them there. Erica was teasing me earlier and told me she would only go with me if I "vamped" my eyes. What do you think? I look like a dork but it was valentines. Crazy eye make up and bold red lips. Oh, and I definitely need a hair cut. Anyway...
We had a little time to kill before we met our men for dinner so we went to Century 21. A must do. I guess it's kind of like a Nordstrom Rack with all the good labels and really good prices. It's a little overwhelming with so much stuff but it's always fun to at least look at all the goods. I found Rand a Ralph Lauren tie for 10 bucks. Not a bad and cheap valentine gift eh? I also found this number and figured I could wear it for Easter Sunday...or not.
Then finally we met up and had dinner at Delmonico's. Apparently it is one of the oldest restaurants in New York. It's a really beautiful place and the dinner was delish! The company was great too. Our friend Allen used to work in Downtown and Randall really hasn't seen any of downtown before because he is in Midtown and so are most of his clients, so it gave us a good excuse to do some very quick site seeing of the stock exchange, ground zero, Zucotti Park. When my brother Nate was visiting in October we visited the protests in Zucotti and I never would have known it was the same place with it all cleaned up.

Sadly we missed our train back home by a few minutes so had to wait another hour in the Hoboken train station. If you want to see or smell some fine sights on a late friday night that is definitely the place :)

I was thinking about it the other day as I was writing in Rand's valentine that it was 16 years ago that we were having out first valentine's day together. I gave him a CD, some beef jerky and some suspenders. Not much has changed since then, unless you count our 4 kids. Hard to believe, but I sure wouldn't want it any other way.

Our Day Today

This is usually what miss Jane looks like lately. Pig tails, tights. On this day she even picked out the skirt to wear over her tights. We already have a fashionista on our hands.
Instead this is us at the doctor this morning. Her sleeping and with fever. Bummer. Poor baby was sick a month ago and they thought it was strep and it wasn't. Today they thought it was strep, but it isn't... so they are going to do some more testing, because she is so sick just like last month and yet...nothing. I'm not all antibiotic happy or anything but it's so frustrating when my kids are never sick but she really hasn't been well all month and hasn't slept through the night in over a month, which isn't happy for any of us :)
On a happier note, while Jane was napping today I helped Kate address her class valentines. I was so excited about it because...
I tricked her into writing her name, wait for it...24 times! So that in and of itself is quite a feat for a 4 year old, but for Kate that is really huge. Kate is a funny little girl who draws all day long. She is so extremely creative and artistic. The things she thinks up to make and draw are amazing. I used to be so nervous about making sure I exposed our kids to the right things to make sure they found their niche and made sure they got to do what they were meant to do. Then Kate came along and it is clear to me that if they really have a love or a talent for something, it will probably just happen.

Anyway, Kate can write letters and if you play a game with her she knows all her letters, BUT if you just say what is this letter? She tells you she has no idea. She just won't do it. She can spell her name out loud and even write the letters on paper, but for the life of me until today she would not write them in order. It was always some funky pattern. Today I thought I would just give it a try and see how far she went. First I just asked her to write a k on a paper, then I asked her to write one K on a valentine, then another and another, you get the drift until she had written JUST the K on every valentine. I was pretty surprised she was happy to sit there that long and do it, but i thought I would try for the A, and sure enough she did that. Then T, and then with the E she always writes KatE with a capitol E so we practiced the lower case e several times but she wasn't having that so I just let her do the upper case and sure enough after about 4 E's she switched and started writing the lower case e. It was in a really weird backward way but she did it. I think her name looks great, and now she gets how to do it correctly left to right all in order. I'm so excited! I was sure she was going to be in remedial Kindergarten :)

"Baby" Jane

It's isn't too often that Jane is referred to as "baby" anymore. It makes me kind of sad. She is definitely growing up fast. She is talking A LOT and it is so fun. Every day I am texting Rand all through the day with something else new she has said, and not just some cute little word but words strung together. The other day she was playing down stairs with Kate while I was folding laundry and Kate said "where's Jane", and Jane popped up out of a box and said "here I is!" It was the cutest thing.

Jane recently started to give you the come here signal waving her hand backwards towards her and wanting you to follow. I thought that alone was cute but then all of a sudden this week she started saying "come on" and "let's go". She can say everyone's name in the family except for Ethan and for some reason won't even try his but has taken a liking to "Kate". I am thinking because that is who she is with most often but it's so cute to hear her little voice calling many times throughout the day "Kate?, Kate?" . She is so darn cute that I just want to smoosh and smooch on her all day long.

She is a funny little thing in that she loves to help and is so good at cleaning up. When she is finished eating or drinking anything she will say "all done" or just "Done!". When you get her down from the table she insists on carrying her plate to the garbage to scrape it and gets mad if you take it from her. She isn't always successful in keeping everything on her plate before she gets to the garbage but it's so sweet. Anyway, when I clean, Jane cleans. she has a spray bottle and a cloth that she has to carry around when I am cleaning. She even helps me clean the toilet bowls in and out, even though I think it's gross and I hate her touching the toilet while I'm trying to wipe it.

Whenever we walk in the door she immediately goes straight to where we hang the coats, and though she can't reach to hang it she tries. Then she goes and puts her "boots" away. I keep telling the other kids that I don't understand why they are all older and yet drop all their gear and yet Jane totally knows the drill.

Jane has also become very interested in the Potty. She found the training potty in the basement and still tries to carry it around with her every where we go. She sits on it often, with all her clothes on most of the time so has never actually gone on it but even often sleeps with the potty in her room at night. I think I would start to train her except Rand and I are going on a little get away the first week of March and I don't want my in-laws who are coming to watch the kids have to deal with a potty trainer. I think if she's still interested after that I will go for it, I think :) ...

One other thing about her is she has recently started to fuss to go down at night. I think she is all too aware that no one else is going to bed and she is missing out. But, if I sing to her the night-night song and "I am a child of God" before I put her down she doesn't fuss at all.

She is so sweet and like all the kids Randall and I look at each other often and say "what would we have done with out her?"

Our Ward

We have lived in a lot of places with many different wards, and most of them have been great, and I don't want to compare them, but I have to say that we are really blessed to be in a fantastic ward. My testimony grows and is strengthened because of those around me. Our ward members are such good examples of people so willing to support others. Let me give a few examples.

First off, when we moved into the ward we had oodles of help with the actual moving in. I was not there personally because Rand and my Dad arrived a day ahead of those of us flying in :), but I was told that there were many men who came to help. Our Bishop even came toward the end when things were fairly well moved in so he offered to stay and helped Rand put all the beds together so they could be settled in for our arrival. Many of the men work very long hours and yet when there is a move or a need in the ward they are there to help. If they didn't come I wouldn't even fault them. Their poor wives hardly see them so why should they be out helping someone else in their free time, but they do. We have been in other areas with other moves where that has not been the case.

Another example. About a month ago a couple moved into our ward and was expecting their first baby. A few weeks after they arrived the baby was born and her visiting teacher felt like she could use some things and decided to host a shower for her. She put the word out on I think a Tuesday for Saturday and truthfully I was nervous about who would be able to come with such short notice. I went and I think there were probably 20 women (or more) there. Many of the women gave this new mom several outfits. In fact this week I have had 2 more calls of sisters asking for this lady's address so they could drop off a gift for her. That same night there was a new member baptism-which I also love about this ward, new members! Anywho, again even though so many had already spent hours of their morning welcoming this new mom and baby into the ward they came to support this new man being baptized. In fact, we had such a great showing that I had to sit on the piano bench the whole time because the room was filled to capacity.

Then, yesterday I received word that a sister from our ward who was 8 months pregnant lost her baby this week. There was a graveside service this morning for the family. This family has only been a part of our ward less than a year and is not very well known. Again I attended wanting to show my support and was overwhelmed at all those who attended to show this poor family their support. I don't even know if some of them even knew this family. It was obviously an emotional morning because of their loss, but I was also just overcome with the goodness of our ward members. I am so grateful to be a part of this gospel and to be among so many great people. I have so many great examples around me and it is such a strength. I love to go to church each week and I haven't always felt that way. I feel the spirit there. I love fast and testimony meeting, and that has not always been the case. I learn so much from the people who bear their testimonies. Our youth, from what I know, seem to be amazing. They all wake up for early morning seminary about 4:30 to be ready for school before they start seminary I think about 6am. They are all very dedicated and are such good kids. The youth participate a lot in our meetings. The youth rotate leading the music in sacrament meeting every single week. They speak in our meetings often and they actually of depth and gospel knowledge. Sometimes when they speak I am reminded of talks that I have heard from returned missionaries. Randall's home teaching companion is 18 and such an amazing boy. Last year he had 100% early morning seminary attendance.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying there aren't other great wards out there, because there are great wards everywhere, and we have been in them, but for now I can't think of a better place that I would rather be to raise my children. Their teachers magnify their callings and care about our kids. I think there are 10 kids that will be baptized this year along with our Anna, which is so hard to believe by the way.

People ask how we like living in "the mission field", and while it's hard to be so far from family, It's definitely the place for us.