Fourth of July, Show Your Support

Today is Independence Day. Mollie and I intentionally did not make many plans for the day. Avoiding the teeming beaches of San Diego, we opted to stay home and relax with our family.
Our lone engagement for the day was our Ward’s pancake breakfast and celebration. The activities committee did a wonderful job. The program consisted of a talk by Matt Vernon, a Navy helicopter pilot. His talk was really moving, and gave me many thinking points for the future.
Matt’s talk started by answering the common question of, “What can I do to show my support and gratitude for military.” His suggestion was simple and elegant. Every Christmas he and his family dress up and go visit the VA Hospital and talk to all the vets.
Growing up my family always went caroling on Christmas Eve to friends and neighbors. I think my new tradition will be to go to the VA and sing to the veterans.

Sam

Trash or Treasure?

Living in graduate student housing definitely has its advantages. One of the stranger ones is the existence of “Free Rooms.” With students coming and going so frequently, you get some interesting phenomena's. One is that most people when they leave don’t want to take much with them. So the advent of “Free Rooms”. These are just the Laundry Rooms, but they have become the unspoken designated area to drop of any and all unwanted items. Each time you enter there are new discarded items just left there to rummage through. Sometimes it’s just a few misc. pots and pans or old kitchen items. Sometimes it’s a stack of Chinese comic books. Other times it’s complete wardrobes - and if it’s your size and style, you are in luck. Yesterday someone was giving up their complete collection of children’s books. Harrison, who has been engrossed in reading books since he has discovered that you can get new ones at the library, was quite excited about the prospect of getting a whole stack of new books. I weeded through them, and managed to find a few (maybe too many) worth keeping. Sam told him that he would have to throw away some of his books at home to make room for the new ones, and he ran in the house singing a song about throwing away all his books. His favorite, by far, is a National Geographic about Dinosaurs. He flips through the whole thing searching for the pictures of Dinosaurs. I have also realized that with these new books, they are interesting and new enough that he will sit and browse them on his own. He sat through sacrament meeting today, reverently and quietly looking at his “Laundry Room” books, as he calls them.

Mollie

Twice-a-Year Sale

If you have an Ikea in your area, you probably know what I am talking about. The infamous “Twice-A-Year-Sale” where Ikea marks down all the overstock at often 50% off the regular price. We have been known to go in the past, persuaded in by the free breakfast (which is actually pretty good) or just to go and let Harrison play in the children’s section. If you haven’t ever been to Ikea - it’s really something. They have model displays of various types of rooms (kitchens, bedrooms, family rooms) for all different styles of living. This time they had a whole apartment laid out - 550 square feet - that you could walk through. Pretty cool. But we were on a quest. We needed some kind of new entertainment center. Our current solution was a white children’s wardrobe which we had configured to work to hold our TV. It was on it’s last legs as the kids had been pulling a little too hard on the front doors for a little too long. So the twice a year sale was more than we could pass up. Since going to Ikea is a fun trip anyway, we decided to go and see if there was something we just couldn’t pass up. So after walking through the amazing showroom, we found it. A very nice looking TV armoire, with lots of storage, and the ability to child proof. The best part was that it was marked down to $150 from $300. So we just had to get it. And getting it home was similar to the picture to the left, with 2 kids, a double stroller and a Honda Civic. But we made it, and we love our new entertainment center.
Mollie

Weeks Recap

Thought I would just highlight some of this weeks happen -ings. We started going to the Library on a weekly basis. Harrison is loving the new books. We go on Tuesdays, and I can say that I have already had enough of “Are You My Mother” for a long time. I be glad for Tuesdays arrival to be able to get some new ones. I think next week we will go with a theme (instead of randomly picking up the first 5 books we see.) Harrison has already requested that it be dinosaurs. So hopefully our Library has a decent selection of dinosaur books.
Noah’s big accomplishments for the week have been adding an eighth tooth to his toothy little grin, and learning to clap his hands. He has also started making attempts at moving along furniture across gaps, and can sometimes be seen standing unassisted for short moments. I think he may be an early walker, but we will wait and see. It’s funny to think that when Harrison was his age, he hadn’t even started crawling.
Harrison discovered this week that watering the garden is a lot more fun when we water Harrison on a hot day - a concept which has eluded him until this summer. He is usually totally uninterested at the wet mess that that makes, but a couple of days ago, decided that it was quite funny. One cute Harrison moment was yesterday when he came up to me, motioning with his hands in little fists rolling (like the wheels on the bus), and saying, “momma, I’m rollin’ with the punches!” a concept that I am working on with him - he tends to freak out if things don’t go exactly how he expects them to go. I’m not sure if he gets the concept yet, but he seems to be having fun with the phrase and the motions.
It has been HOT here. Well, hot for coastal San Diego anyway. It’s been in the low 80’s, but with no air conditioning, and two boys who love to be out at the park when there seems to be no shade, it’s plenty hot. Hopefully things will cool down a bit soon. I think I might invest in a small pool to have on our back porch so the boys can splash around a cool off. It would be really nice if we had easy access to a pool, but I guess you can only ask for so much.
This weekend is the 4th of July weekend, and we don’t really have any plans - I’m kind of looking forward to it.
Mollie

Little Reminders

So, after a long frustrating evening of trying to get Harrison down to bed, on my final attempt, I picked him up to read to him one last book, and Harrison gave me a great big hug, rubbed by back soothingly with one arm (as I often do to him), raised his head and looked at me and said, “You are my sweetie pie. And I am your sweetie pie,.” All the frustration of the night melted away, and I remembered why I do this. Or at least remembered that there are rewards for doing this.
Mollie

Traveling with Tots

We just got back from our week long “vacation” to visit the Paynes in Texas. We had a very nice time visiting with family, and it was fun to see everyone. But I’ve figured out over the past 2 years that when you travel with children, it’s not exactly vacation as it once was. Before we had kids, we used to try and extend the amount of time we spent somewhere. But I figured out that once you have kids, especially more than one child, longer is not always better. By the 5th day Harrison was ready to get back to “my bed, my house and my toys.” I was also getting weary of the 9 pm bed time and the 6:30 am wake time with an unpredictable nap.
But for the most part we had a great time. The plane ride was bearable, and we had our own apartment over the garage to stay in. Harrison had a great time riding the John Deer with Grandpa and picking tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash with grandma. He also loved playing with his many uncles who spent countless hours entertaining him. It was nice to be with family, and it makes me wish we had some family a little closer. Our next “vacation” is coming up very soon - a trip up to Utah in August. I can only hope it will go as well as this one did.
Mollie

Sick, Sick, Sick

I decided a photo would not be appropriate for this entry. We have not accomplished much this past week - unless you call watching endless hours of Pixar films an accomplishment. Harrison and I have both been taken sick with some sort of stomach bug. He was hit by it on Tuesday, and I had no idea what was about to hit me. I kinda feel like what some of the hurricane Katrina victims must have felt like. They were given the warning signals, told to evacuate, but for some reason, they didn’t think it would be that bad. Harrison had thrown up once during the day, but seemed to feel fine otherwise. He had been running and playing as normal. Then in the evening he was sick some more, but seemed to recover just as quickly. So, when I felt a little nauseous on Tuesday evening, I thought, well, I guess I’m getting it too. But I did not take it as well as an active two-year-old takes the flu. I was sick in bed, could hardly move, and regretted it every time I did. I wont go into any more details, suffice it to say, I am glad the worst has passed. Although, Harrison got sick again on Friday. I only hope that’s not some kind of second warning signal for myself.
Mollie