Scripture Boys

A few weeks ago I found (and recorded part of) the following scene [Warning: it is long...]:

A little background info. Harrison was given a missionary sized copy of the Book of Mormon by his Grandma for his birthday. He loves having his very own, and has started reading it.  A month or so ago, he made the very lofty goal of finishing the Book of Mormon with in a few weeks.  Not wanting to discourage him, but wanting to help him to be more realistic, Sam told Harrison he would get a special outing every time he finished a book in the Book of Mormon.  He has been reading 1st Nephi ever since, and loving it.  He'll come tell us about what he has read, and seems very proud of himself.  Noah was given the same sized book from his Primary teacher at church, and so Harrison was helping Noah to read and mark his very own scriptures in the above video.  As this was happening, I decided it would be nice for the boys to have their very own scripture cases just for their Book of Mormon.  I had seen kids with these before, and figured I could make them without too much trouble.  I took the boys to the fabric store, and let them pick out some fabric.  I had an old denim skirt that had been in the mending pile way too long (like 7 years....) and decided it was time to use it for something.

Here's me wearing the skirt.  I loved that skirt, but it was a wrap that never stayed wrapped quite right.  As I was looking at how I should cut the bags out, I noticed that I had two pockets in the skirt that I could use for the bags.  So I cut around the pockets, and then carefully removed the waistband to use for handles.  Here's the result:

Harrison requested his initials, while Noah wanted just a big N:

 

Each bag is lined with their chosen fabric, and has lettering fused on the outside.  We used the pockets to hold colored pencils which they can use to mark their scriptures.  Harrison likes to mark each verse as he finishes it, and other things that stick out to him as he reads.  Noah can't read by himself yet, so he marks all the words he recognizes.  The day after I made these, the boys took them to sacrament meeting, and sat silently the ENTIRE meeting reading/marking their scriptures.  And then continued once we got home. 

Harrison also finished 1st Nephi on Sunday.  Hopefully 2nd Nephi doesn't bog him down too much... 

All About Olivia

Olivia is growing up so fast these days. She's 18 months now - I can hardly believe it (and she'll be 19 in just a couple more days!) She's done some pretty funny things that I wanted to write about.

A few days ago she wandered upstairs while everyone was getting ready in the morning.  I was busy clearing the breakfast table/making lunches/unloading the dishwasher,  so it took me a few minutes to go find out what she was up to.  And the silence had me pretty worried.  This is what I found:

Shes was sitting in the bathroom with all the shampoo/baby wash she could find, and was taking turns dumping them on her head.

Is this the "I know I'm in trouble" face, or what? Oh, and yes, that's Noah's underwear on her leg. In all the mischievous acts my two boys did at this age, I don't think they ever involved dressing themselves, or washing themselves. Girls sure are different.

Olivia loves to draw.  She also loves to use as many markers as possible, which usually means that we end up with all the markers with their caps off all over the table and floor.

She often holds a marker or crayon in the correct possition for writing - I guess you learn a lot being a thrid child, because I never taught her this. I would love to let her color more, but more often I'm finding the coloring on the walls...

She is also, as I mentioned before, interested in dressing herself. The other day she was with me in her room while I was putting away laundry. When I turned around from what I was doing, she had no less than 3 pairs of bloomers on.

This girl makes me laugh.

After I took them off, she promptly tried to put them 

back on. This time, all at once. 

A few other cute things about this cute girl. Every time she gets dressed (or sees her hair accessories) she asks to put one on. "Bow, pity [pretty] bow" she says. And she can be quite opinionated about which one I put on. And sometimes demands that she have multiple bows on at the same time. She loves accessories of all kinds, and one of her first words was shoes. She loves carrying around bags, and trying on hats. She says "cank-oo" [thank you] whenever someone gives her something, and loves to fold her arms, and sometimes mimic the words, during prayers. She loves, loves, loves teddy bears, and signs and says "bea" [bear] every time she sees one. Even if it's being held by a different kid, across the room, she'll yell for it like it's her own. Balls are probably 2nd on her list, and she loves to sign and say "ba" every time she sees one. She's a fabulous sleeper - she goes down around 6, and around 7 (or whenever she hears people awake downstairs) we can hear her calling "Hi! Hi!" She's almost always very happy in the morning. (I probably would be too if I got 13 hours of sleep a night!) She can often be heard making shooting noises while she points whatever she has in her hand at you (her sippy cup, a bear, a lego...) Do you think she's got 2 older brothers? She also takes anything that resembles a telephone (calculator, baby monitor, toy phone, real phone) holds it up to her ear, says, "hallo" and then continues to babble into the phone. When I told her Grandma was coming, and asked her to say Grandma, she held her hand up to her ear and said "Hallo!" Apparently I talk to my mom on the phone quite a bit. Our front door makes a chime whenever it's opened, and whenever she hears it she yells, "Dadda! Hi Dadda!" Over and over until she actually sees Sam. It's quite a welcome home. I sure there are many more that I can't think to mention. We just love having her around to brighten our day and make us smile.

Best. Gift. Ever.

Today is our Anniversary.  Eight years ago today, during the Olympics in Salt Lake, Sam and I were married for eternity in Manti UT.  And it has been a great eight years.  And now I will always remember just how great these 8 years have been.  Today Sam gave me the best gift ever.  He made a book of our first 8 years.  I guess it's a little more than 8, since it starts with our first date. 

Here's some of the preview pages from blurb.  It's even better in real life!

First Date/BYU winter semester 2001

Summer dating on the east coast:

Back cover:

I know he must have spent a long time gathering all the photos, memorabilia and scanning it in, and then putting the book together. It is something I will always treasure. I have been meaning to put together something like this for a LONG TIME, and now I'm off the hook! I love you, Sam!

Valentine's Party

We just finished up our first of 3 Valentine's parties for the week.  I think it was a success - there were cookies and candy, and I don't think we had any crying kids!  The kids all decorated some valentines boxes, exchanged valentines, played a few valentines games, and decorated some cookies.  I didn't get too many pictures, but here's a couple:

 

Here are some of the kids decorating their boxes. Noah and Harrison ended up doing theirs without help - I was trying to hold down the fort in a general kind of way, so I think my kids got a little neglected. At one point I realized I hadn't seen Olivia for a few minutes. When I peeked around the corner, she was dumping valentine's candy out of boxes in an attempt to get some.

The poofy balls hanging from the ceiling were made for Harrison's Valentine's party.  Which is yet to come.  It's from Martha Stewart - super simple, and cheap for decorations.  

 Passing out the valentines - I didn't think this one through too well, so it was mass chaos.  Although I'm not sure you can avoid mass chaos when there are 10 kids ages 2-6 involved.  Not to mention a few mischievous toddlers wandering around :)

Happy Valentine's Day

 

We've had a good Valentine's Day so far - roses, chocolates, cards, and being around people we love.  My Mom just left today - she came for a short visit following a business trip to the area. She was a great help in putting together a bunch of Valentine's - since we got snowed in all week last week, all the Valentine's parties got postponed.  We're having a preschool party here tomorrow, then Noah has his other preschool party on Tuesday, and Harrison we'll finally get his party on Friday.  So it will feel like Valentine's Day for a while longer around here.  And I think that's a good thing. 

We MOVED

our blog, that is.  Our address was a bit outdated, and so I created a new one (which I'm sure we'll grow out of someday...) so from now on you can find us here.  Just make sure you update your reader and links from your blog, so you'll get to the right place, and continue to get our updates.  I'll leave this blog up for a little while, which will redirect you to our new site.

Powerless Weekend

As everyone has probably already heard, the DC area was hit by a major snowstorm this weekend. Call it what you will: snowmegeddon, snowpocalypse, or snowzillia. It was a lot of snow. I woke up around 4 AM to find that the power was out - we aren't sure when it went out, but sometime after 10.

This was the view from our back deck when we woke up. Snow still falling:

The house was 61 degrees in the morning, and with no heat, we knew it was just going to get colder from there. Thankfully we only lost a degree every few hours. The boys didn't seem to notice the lack of power - they just played with their legos all day. Harrison actually commented at the end of the day: "You keep calling today and emergency day, but it just feels like any other day."

The boys were disappointed to not go outside and play in the snow. But with no way to warm them up, or dry their clothes, we decided that playing in the snow wouldn't be the best idea. We were also trying to limit the number of times we opened the front door, to try and keep as much heat in the house as we could.

Sam did shovel a pathway to the car so he could listen to the radio and get updates on the storm and the power outage (we had some crank radios in our emergency kit, but they didn't pick up any useful stations. We'll be investing in some better ones for sure.):

There was definitely more snow than our storm in December. And we were very excited to see this site:

A snow plow. Thankfully our HOA seems to be really good about clearing all the streets.

Olivia preferred to hang out in a coat. And I don't blame her. It was cold.

And the snow kept falling:

When Sam measured it in our yard he got a measurement of 26 inches. The official measurement was 30.
We packed up our freezer stuff in plastic bins and stuck them in the snow. Then we loaded baking dishes with snow and put those in the fridge. At least the food didn't have to spoil with the power out.

Once the sun set, we were able to make use of our emergency kits. We had matches, candles and flashlights and batteries. We ate dinner by candlelight, and cooked by candlelight. Thankfully we have a gas range, so we were able to make soup, quesadillas and hot cocoa.

We felt very fortunate that we had both charged our cell phones, and the laptop had been charged. Our home phone forwards to our cell phone, so we didn't miss any calls, and we were able to keep our families up to date on our situation. They also tried to find information for us, but it seemed that the only information available was that a lot of people were without power, and it could be a while before we got it back.

Once dinner was over and Olivia was all bundled (tights, 3 pairs of PJ's and a furry lined jacket, with an extra pair of socks):

and in bed, we let the boys watch a movie:

that photo was taken with a flash. This is what it really looked like:

Sam taped up the doors with towels, hoping to keep the house as warm as possible. It was 57 by bed time, and we knew it would be dropping quite a bit during the night. The outside temp was suppose to fall to 12 degrees.
And then we bundled up the boys. They seemed kind of excited to wear hats and gloves to bed.

And everyone slept just fine. Each boy had several blankets, and Sam and I stayed warm with our new down comforter. We did get the power back right after putting the kids to bed, but it only stayed on for about 20 seconds. Just long enough to get our hopes up. But come morning their was still no power, and now the house was at 46 degrees, and dropping. BURRRRRRR. We ate breakfast (hot cocoa, oatmeal and eggs) and decided it would be best to go somewhere in the car. The car had heat, and we figured we could go somewhere with heat. So I threw a bunch of stuff in the car, while Sam dug it out and warmed it up. Olivia at this point was done with being cold. The boys on the other hand were back at the Lego table, and questioning why we were leaving. We finally got everyone in the car with extra clothes, blankets and food, and chargers for our phones and computers, and headed over to Sam's office.

Thankfully the roads were passable. But there was a lot of snow out there. The trees were all bent over with the weight of it all:

And their were huge snow banks at intersections:

We got caught up on email, tried to get any information we could and charged all our electronic devices. The kids loved wondering around, and snacking as we did.

Then we had to figure out our next plans. There was someone at Sam's office that lives across the street who offered to have us come over. But letting us know they have a small apartment with a loud dog. Regent, our sister-in-law, has family in VA, and they very kindly offered to pick us up and let us stay there until we had power. But we figured finding somewhere closer and more kid friendly would be a good idea. So we called our friends the Fredins. They were so kind to let us come over, warm up, and play. They fed us yummy lunch and dinner, and provided great company. They have 3 boys about the same age as our kids. The boys were able to go out in the snow, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. At dinner time we sent Sam back to our place to check if the power was back on. Thankfully it was. We are back home now, and enjoying another snowed-in day, this time with power. Sam has no work, the boys have no school (today or tomorrow) but I can do things like catch up the blog. And prepare for our next storm, headed this way tomorrow. The most recent prediction I heard was 12 inches. I thought I moved to DC, not Chicago. What is up with this weather?