Soccer Mom

So with practices 4 nights a week for my 3 oldest boys, I am officially a soccer mom. It makes me feel a bit old to think of being a soccer mom. I even have the minivan to go along with the soccer mom persona.

It is fun to watch my kids in their practices though. It's fun to watch Ben when he gets all excited and starts doing a little dance when his team scores a goal in their scrimmages. It's fun to see how athletic Alex is and how well he keeps up with the other players on his team who have already been playing for a couple of years. He seems like he'll be a good defender. It's fun watching Chris's practices because they're 3 year-olds and sometimes have a hard time paying attention to what they're doing. Often one or another will jump on the ball and grab it with their hands. I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen when they actually start their games next weekend.

Here are some pictures of the boys at their practices:

These first two are at Ben's practice:



These next two are at Alex's. He's practicing throwing in the ball in the second picture:



This last one is Chris at his practice:

The Dangers of Waiting For the Bus

Ben's bus comes to pick him up in the morning at about 7:50, sometimes a little before, sometimes a little after. Some mornings we get there and have to wait for a few minutes. Other mornings, we're running a bit late, and just have about 30 seconds before the bus arrives. Today was one of the latter. I actually kind of like it when we time it like that, although it makes me a little nervous to think of what would have happened if we had been 2 minutes later.

Usually waiting for the bus is a pretty uneventful activity. The kids all just line up on the sidewalk and wait for the bus to arrive. There's typically no pushing or shoving or horsing around, even despite the fact that there are mostly boys waiting in line.

However, occasionally there are some dangers involved in waiting for the bus in the morning. Here is a picture from this morning to demonstrate:



Yes, in case you can't tell or aren't sure, those are mosquito bites on Alex's legs. In the 30 seconds we were waiting for the bus to get there, Alex got 5 bites on one leg and 2 on the other. It's a little amazing to think of, considering that Alex never sits still. You'd think the mosquitoes would have gone for someone who was standing still, who would have been a better target. But maybe Alex's blood was pumping faster and therefore more enticing. Whatever the case, they decided to go for him.

So you can see that waiting for the bus to come in the morning isn't without its thrill of danger. Who wouldn't love to take the risk of possibly being infected with West Nile Virus?

I do think that we'll make sure we all get some mosquito repellant on before we head out to the bus stop the next time we go.

My crazy kids

Okay, I thought I'd do one more post today while I'm posting and just include a few pictures of the boys doing their normal everyday stuff. They can be pretty silly when they want to be. :)

Here the boys put the futon cushion on the floor and wanted to pretend to go to sleep. Alex is actually hiding under the cushion here, so you can't see him:




Here, Ben got out the camera and would "get" Chris with it. Chris was kind of trying to hide on his bed:



Ever since we got the pool, swimming is a common activity for the boys. In the first picture, Ben and Alex wanted to show off their skills of swimming under water. In the second one, Chris was just drying off on a break from swimming. He's so skinny that he gets cold while he's swimming and shivers a lot, but doesn't want to stop swimming. He will usually get out of the pool, dry off, then get back in.




Now if I had only remembered to take a camera to soccer practices, I could show pictures of Ben's first soccer practice and Chris's. And just in case you were wondering, it's kind of comical to watch 3 year olds in a soccer practice. Half the time they refuse to do what the coach (who is our neighbor from across the street) asks them to do, part of the time they're looking around at other stuff (the playground right next to the field is a big temptation), and the other part they're actually kind of trying. It will be very interesting to see their first games on the 6th.

Big 1st Grader

Ben started his first day of first grade today. He's been pretty nervous about it for the last couple of weeks. He didn't think he'd like going all day, he didn't want to do harder stuff, and I think he was afraid he wouldn't know where to go.

Last Friday they finally posted the class lists, so Ben and I drove down to the school to see who his teacher would be and who was in his class. He was happy to see that there were quite a few from his kindergarten class in his class with him. His two best friends were in other classes, but he was okay with that.

On Monday they had a meet the teacher night, so we went over to meet his teacher and she let him pick out where he was going to sit today. She wrote his name on a post-it and had him put it on the spot where he wanted to sit. He first put it at a table where no one else had put their names, but when his friend Juan showed up and put his name at a table, Ben moved his to sit across from him. He was happy to know that he'd be sitting by someone he knew.

Last night, Bryce gave Ben a Father's Blessing and told Ben that he wouldn't be apprehensive or nervous, that he would be excited. He said he'd be excited to learn and be able to learn what he needed, that he'd meet up with old friends and make new friends, that he would want to be good and obey his teacher. Ben actually has strong faith when it comes to prayers and blessings. He surprises and impresses me quite often with how strong his faith is. He started feeling a bit better after the blessing, but this morning when he got up, he said he wasn't nervous anymore, that he was just excited. He kept asking when it was time to go and made sure his brothers were up so they wouldn't make him late for the bus. He did get a bit nervous when the bus came and wasn't sure where he wanted to sit, so I had to go help encourage him to sit and that he would be fine, but he was still excited to be going to school.

Here are a couple pictures of Ben ready to go on his first day.

Ben wanted to look grumpy for the first one, mostly because he didn't want me to take his picture because he was afraid it would make him late:


Now he's finally smiling:


Here he's waiting for the morning bus (his first time on this morning bus) with Alex and the other kids:

Chasing tires

Since our dog is very large, he tends to chew through his toys fairly quickly. It almost seems like a waste to get him balls or toys like that because he usually doesn't have them for very long. So last spring, we bought him a tire to play with. At first he wasn't sure what to do with it, but lately he is always carrying it around and chewing on it and wanting us to play tug with him with it. Of course, that's not so fun when I'm trying to mow the back lawn and he thinks the tires on the lawnmower are fair game.

Here are some pictures of Ozzy with his tire:

Just a quick one...

I just thought I'd do a quick update in case you were keeping track and wondered how things were going.

I took Daniel to the doctor today for his follow-up appointment from his last ear infection. Mom and Dad were very nice to watch the rest of the kids and stay a bit longer in the morning so I wouldn't have to take the whole crowd.

They weighed him first, as they always do, and he is now 22 pounds, 4 ounces. The nurses in the office all think Daniel is very cute and one said I'll have to watch him with the girls when he's older.

The doctor came in and looked at his computer to see when he's been seen in the past for those and said, "So this was his 4th infection, right?" I said it was and he said, "Oh, dang." He asked a few more health history questions to make sure his information was current, then looked in Daniel's ears and said they looked perfect. Then we talked a little about the fact that this was his 4th ear infection in 6 months. And with the last one, he had been to the doctor for a follow-up appointment for the previous infection and his ears looked perfect then. So apparently he gets ear infections easily, but he also gets over them easily with the antibiotics. He said we had a couple of options, that we could go ahead and do tubes, we could just keep treating infections and not do tubes (but with Ben in school and bringing home viruses, he didn't think that would be the best option), or we could wait until he has another ear infection and then probably do tubes, hoping that he won't get another one. We decided to go with that last option. So for now, we're not doing tubes, but it is a possibility in the future.

On kind of a side note, he was telling me that now they recommend that all kids do get the flu shot. He said that before it was more of an option, but now it is recommended and encouraged.

Becoming Scattered

Often we talk in church about the scattering of the 12 tribes of Israel. Usually the talk about why the scattering occurred centers around the wickedness of the people. For example, the people were becoming wicked, so the Lord caused them to be cast out of their lands and scattered across the earth. One aspect that we don't often discuss is that yes, a major reason for the scattering was wickedness, but another large part was in order to preserve His people. In the Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob 5, the Lord of the vineyard (who we know represents Jesus Christ) takes away many young and tender branches of the olive tree to graft into other trees throughout the vineyard (or the world) in order to "preserve unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also, that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself" (Jacob 5:13).

Bryce's parents are up visiting us for a couple of days and anticipating their coming got me to thinking about the good and bad points of living away from most of our family. Quite often I will see pictures of birthday parties or other family gatherings that we couldn't attend because of where we live and get a twang of jealousy and sadness. I miss being able to spend more time with my family and letting my kids know their cousins better. At times I will feel a bit out of the loop when we have conversations about things going on.

We really don't live all that far away from family, either. It's a relatively easy 5 1/2 hour drive, so it's a trip that can be made with some frequency and without too much trouble. Even so, we miss out on some things that I would like to be able to be around for.

My sister Di has about a 9-11 hour drive (Mom could tell the time better, since she's done it and I haven't) from where she lives to go visit the family, so hers is a little bit harder to do.

And my favorite brother, Brian, just moved his family across the country, so it would take a few days to drive or take as long to fly as it takes me to drive.

And those are just going to where the rest of our family lives, that's not coming here or me going there. So I don't get to see them very often. It makes it a little sad, since I've got a new niece, Savannah, who I have never seen. She was born just a few weeks before Brian and Steph moved their family. I'm hoping that they will start a blog here sometime and post lots of pictures and lots of stories so I can feel like I know their kids a bit better.

So living away from family, being scattered in a sense, does have its bad points. It has its good points too however.

When you move your family away from the support you've grown up depending on, it makes you as a family depend more on each other and you become closer and stronger both as a married couple and as a family unit. I had always heard some people say that the best advice they would give a married couple would be to move at least 300 miles away from their parents, and I never really understood the benefits until I did it. Not that staying close is bad, but for us anyway, we seem to have only grown closer as we've been scattered from our family.

Another good point is that when the families get together and the one kid who was sick ends up getting everyone else sick, we can sit back and be glad that we couldn't make it to that family gathering and aren't throwing up along with everyone else.

One other good point that I've really come to appreciate is that living away from family has made us depend a little more on our ward family. We've become closer to more people than we would otherwise and have had to ask for or accept help from ward members that we probably otherwise wouldn't have. I think it's made us stronger in our faith as we've done so.

It's still nice to know that I have parents and in-laws who would drop everything to come up if I needed them to. I still have that support, even though it's not as close.

So as Brian and Steph start their new life being scattered from the family and the things that have been familiar to them, I hope they will be able to see the positive side of the scattering. They will become closer as a couple and as a family. They will be able to depend on their ward family and make new, lasting friendships. Their faith will increase and they will find that they are stronger than they thought possible.

I hope we will all be able to see that the scattering isn't always bad, but that it does "preserve...the natural branches" and our own families can be stronger because of it. Blessings we may not ever have expected may come because of our being scattered. I know I've received blessings I never before thought of because we've been scattered. And one day, whether in this life or the next, we will come to a time when we are all gathered together forever.

Comfort

I'm sure I won't say this as well as I would like to, but here goes anyway.

As I sit here and write this today, my sister and her husband are sitting in the waiting room at Primary Children's Hospital, waiting to hear how the surgery is going on their 5 day-old son, Dylan. He's got an extremely rare heart defect, truncus along with coarctation of the aorta. It's so rare in fact, that many people don't believe that you can have truncus (truncus itself isn't as rare) along with coarctation. Apparently they're wrong. The surgeon told Cindy and Russ that he's only ever seen it in one other patient. The surgery is supposed to last 5-6 hours, but they were told to expect it to go 7-8 hours.

Cindy, Russ, and Dylan have been on my mind a lot since Dylan was born on Friday. I've felt bad that I couldn't go down to be there with them at this time. I keep telling myself that there's really nothing I could do there anyway.

As I've thought about them, a lot of scriptures have come to my mind. A lot have been the usual scriptures of comfort, like "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you...let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." and "be still and know that I am God." Some scriptures have almost seemed to be forced on me as I've been studying and preparing for my Sunday School lessons. In last week's and this week's lessons especially, it seems as though Alma has constantly been reminding me that the Lord will sustain us in our troubles and trials. For example, in this coming Sunday's lesson, Alma speaks to his sons Helaman and Shiblon and gives them advice and counsel. To Helaman he says, "And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions;..." (Alma 36:27). To Shiblon, he says, "...I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day" (Alma 38:5). One that particularly stood out to me was when Alma and Amulek were preaching among the Zoramites. Amulek tells them, "But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions" (Alma 34:41).

We may wish we could never have trials and afflictions, especially as we're going through them, but they're for our good. They help us grow and learn to trust in the Lord. And as we come to realize that God is in charge and knows what He's doing, that he has a plan for us, we can be comforted and supported in our trials. And we can know that the day will come when we can "rest from all (our) afflictions". And won't that be a glorious day?

But today, while I'm waiting to hear news of the surgery, I can realize that even though I can't be there to support Cindy and Russ, the Lord will be. And I will hug my own children a little more often today and hold them longer and feel grateful for my blessings, especially for the knowledge that we have been sealed together for all eternity and will be able to rest from our afflictions.

A Busy Thursday

Thursday wasn't originally going to be too busy. We had a doctor appointment scheduled for Ben, but that was it. But then I had to change Ozzy's vet appointment from Monday to Tuesday and then to Thursday because Chris was sick and throwing up. Since he was sick and throwing up, I also had to change my dentist appointment from Tuesday to Thursday. So it made for a very busy day.

Ben's doctor appointment was for 9:30, so at about 9:00, I got the kids all loaded up and dropped most of them off at Katie's and then took Ben to the doctor. He was pretty nervous about it even though he knew he wouldn't be getting any shots. He's healthy and is about 45 inches tall and weighs 54 pounds. That's 50% and 75%, respectively. Basically where he's always been in the percentages.

After Ben's appointment, we picked up his brothers, I ran in our house for a minute to change Daniel's diaper, put the stroller in the van and grabbed a couple of bottles of water, and we headed out to the nature center. Ben didn't get to go there when we went with Alex's preschool, so he really wanted to go. They all had a really good time looking at all the fish in the water and seeing the bat boxes and trying to spot birds and squirrels.

Here is a picture of the reflection of Alex and Chris off the glass by the fish:


Ben and Alex (and Chris, although you can't see Chris in the picture) trying to see the birds and squirrels:


Ben took this picture of the fish:


Chris and Daniel are in the stroller ready to move on:


This is a spot on the trail where you can get up next to the stream. Ben and Alex thought it was cool to go up and touch the water:


This is where Daniel hung out most of the time. He wanted to get a closer look though:


This is Daniel getting his closer look with his brothers:


This is the 3 older boys looking at the fish:


When we finished at the nature center, we picked Bryce up from work and took him to lunch at Pizza Hut. Of course, that ended up making us a bit late, so we had to hurry when we left there and I dropped the kids off at Katie's again, ran home to grab the dog (with a minute of frantic searching for his leash, since the boys like to play with it), and rushed to his vet appointment. I had called them on the way to let them know I'd be about 10 or so minutes late, and was about that late.

I've always been used to dogs that get the smell of the vet's office at the door and then stop and really don't want to go in. Ozzy, on the other hand, gets the smell of the other dogs in the vet's office and really, really wants to go in to find someone to play. Kind of funny that the last couple of times we've gone in, there's been a dachshund there. This appointment was the follow-up one to see how he's been doing on the Rimadyl. Each time we go in, it's a different vet who actually looks at him, but they do seem to agree quite often. This vet took at look at him and looked at his chart and then asked me how old he is and said, "Wow. So what are you going to do?" She was saying how whatever we end up doing, we're going to end up with pain for him. They can do hip replacements that help them, but those are really painful surgeries (not to mention expensive...she told me about her friend who was just quoted $20,000 for her dog's hip replacement, but that included another procedure too). She was the first vet who seemed to agree with us that Ozzy has something wrong with his knees too. She said his hips, knees, and ankles all look bad. She suggested that we take his x-rays and get an examination/consultation from an orthopedic vet to see what they'd say as far as options. They might recommend surgery (and she said not to feel bad if they recommended that and we didn't do it), or they might say that with all the other stuff he has going on, surgery really wouldn't help. I did get the feeling from her that she thought that putting him down within the next few years would be something we'll have to consider. She told me how she gets to have her hips replaced next month, so she really feels for the dogs that have hip problems. They did some bloodwork on Ozzy to check his kidney and liver function so we could make sure he was healthy there before we keep giving him Rimadyl, since it can cause issues with the kidneys and liver. In any case, we feel bad for our poor, big, dumb dog who has such a bad back end. (And in case you were wondering, yes, his parents were OFA certified, which means they had the x-rays and tests to make sure they didn't have hip dysplasia.)

After the vet appointment, I picked up the kids from Katie's again and we came home where they ate some of their leftover pizza. I was home for a little over an hour, then left again to drive to the vet's office again to pick up some more Rimadyl, since Ozzy's bloodwork came back and everything was perfect, then drove out to my dentist appointment. I got there a little early, but they still took me right back. They took off the "bandaid" and then took out the stitches. The one in the back by the jaw hinge really kind of hurt when they took it out. So far it's healing fine. The dentist wanted to check it out again right before they do the crown build-up, so they were having me try to schedule with him on the same day as my next appointment. That's when we discovered that my regular dentist will no longer be working on the day I was scheduled, so we had to reschedule that one for about 2 weeks later. Hopefully the gums won't go back up and get in the way of the crown build-up by then.

On the way home, I stopped by a neighbor's house to get their key and their instructions on how they want me to feed their dogs when they go to San Francisco to take their son to the Neuro-oncologist for treatment for his inoperable brain tumor. They're not sure how long they'll be down there. I had offered to take care of their dogs for them and keep an eye on their house (I can see it from my house) while they're away, and they decided to take me up on it. Hopefully things will go well for them in San Francisco and they'll be able to get everything taken care of quickly and the prognosis will be good.

And finally, last night after I got home, we sat down and tried to take a quick (not a great one) family group picture to send to Bryce's uncle for their family reunion this weekend. It's not always easy to get a decent-looking picture when one uses the timer and there is no one to keep the kids' attention focused on the camera. So we just took a couple and sent them one that looked okay. Even despite Alex's frowning because he wanted to sit on the chair and didn't want to stand.

Bryce wondered why I didn't delete the ones that really didn't turn out. I think it's kind of fun to see our chaos.

Here's take 1. Bryce was trying to hurry and hand Daniel to me, since he wasn't happy on his dad's lap:


And take 2 (you'll notice I'm not in it...I forgot that my camera doesn't stay on the timer setting and you have to reset that each time):


And take 3, which is the one we said was good enough: