Jack is 4!!

February is pretty eventful around here since we celebrate both Belen and Jack's birthdays. 

Jack got to celebrate with a few of his friends - they opened presents and played with the toys and had a good time. 

(from left to right : Jack Kizzar (whom he calls by his full name since they have the same first name - this cracks me up), Connor Ferris, Barry Warner)
When it was time to sing Happy Birthday he suddenly became overwhelmed by all the attention focused on him, so he hid...

as the song went on, he came around...

and in the end decided to blow out his candles with enthusaism.

On February 9th Jack turned 4 and we celebrated as a family.  Jack gets pretty excited about his birthday and this year was super opinionated about his cake. This year he wanted as many layers as we could make.  I think the inspiration for this came from one of our favorite story books - Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming - in the story, the main character, Jack, makes a cake for the princess for her birthday and has quite the adventure getting it to the castle - the cake Jack makes has layers, and the royal cake at the end of the book has lots of layers.  Anyway, he wanted layers.  His birthday landed on a Sunday and I realized I only had one cake mix (and was much too lasy to do anything from scratch) so we borrowed a few cake pans and made 4 skinny layers - appropriate since he is turning 4.  We had a great time dying each layer of the cake with food coloring, pouring the batter into the pans and licking our fingers all along the way.  Each step of the way was pretty exciting as we baked them, cooled each colorful circle on the counter and finally piled them up, frosted them, decorated the top like a 3 eyed monster and devoured it with ice cream and milk.

Jack loves music, he already knows the words to a bunch of rock classics, some michael jackson a few pop songs and all the words to let it go from frozen, plus he'll belt out some church songs too.
He doesn't dance as much as he used to (sadly), but still has some killer moves.
He's opinionated about what he wears - he prefers sweat pants and t-shirts, but he sure cleans up nice when he wears jeans and a collared shirt or when he gets spiffed up for church.
He loves to pretend to be a dinosaur, bird or dog and often stays in character for over an hour (this includes only growling/gnashing his teeth, tweeting, or barking and of course crawling around on all fours)  This is often how we get him to eat his dinner - "dinosaurs love green beans" and suddenly there's 17 beans in his mouth being ripped to shreads as he growls - it's a little bit gross at times, but pretty effective.
He is loud, has a short fuse, and an explosive temper but on the flip side is so loving and tender hearted - he loves to cuddle and read stories, he loves his sisters and is such a good friend and brother to both of them.
He wants to obey the rules, sometimes this is hard for him and lots of the time he doesn't BUT he wants to be good - for example, sometimes when he is sneaking treats (an almost daily occurrence), he'll sneak a vegetable first.

He has a very active imagination and will tell stories in great detail - very fun to listen to, not always easy to comprehend.
He has no shortage of personality and we love him oh so much - Happy birthday to my favorite 4 year old boy in the world!

because memories fade

a couple months ago i spilled water on my laptop - i was told nothing was retrievable - i thought i had lost more than a years worth of photos - i was... upset. after struggling with this for a few days, i decided to take it back to best buy and hope for a different technician and a different answer - well my prayers were answered and i did - and i got all my photos back - yay!!

but this little scare lit a fire in me, since the only photos i would've had were the ones i had emailed or posted on the blog.  i often think that i'll be able to scroll through my photos years from now and the memories will all come flooding back, but the truth is... memories fade, and they fade quickly.  so here i am, making a written commitment to be better at keeping a record, because i love these times and i know i'm going to want to relive them later. 

so here goes - February 2014 in a nutshell...

it has been an incredibly cold and snowy winter here in Ohio and we've scored a bunch of 2 hour delays and snow days because of it.  and the truth is... i love it!  right now i am teaching early morning seminary at 6:30am and when school is delayed or cancelled, seminary is off.  I love seminary, but i'm still not a morning person so when i hear we have a delay or cancellation i'm just like a kid again - looking forward to taking the day off, sleeping in, having a long breakfast, and playing in the snow (or watching my kids play in the snow, or relaxing/being productive while my kids play in the snow).  The other day we had a delay, which turned into a cancellation and Bel immediately started planning the day's activities.  It started with a coloring contest of the sunrise happening outside our window. 

it was a pretty incredible activity - all 4 of us (even Sage) sat at the table with crayons and paper - looking out the window for inpspiration, chatting and coloring away - it was awesome.

I missed the prime moment for photographing, but this was the subject for our coloring contest. 

(As a sidenote - this is one of my favorite things about where we live - this view and the orientation of the house.  One of the many rewards for getting up early for seminary is that i get to see the sun rise through these trees every. single. day.  i'm certain it is God's way of helping me start my day on a peaceful note - i absolutely love it!)

And this was the result of our artistic abilities.

Artists clockwise from top left : Bel, Jack, Mom, Sage

There's been lots of playing outside in the snow...

For a couple weeks, Bel was broderline obsessed with the size of the mounds at the end of the driveway, she was very concerned that Jack's would grow higher than hers and lectured us to shovel accordingly.

Sometimes she sits and carves shapes out of the hard chunks of snow.

 One day she made snow cakes for everyone.  here's mine

pretty little snow cake - and delicious too.  speaking of eating snow... that's what Sage loves to do (much to her father's dismay and ironically a direct inheritance from her mother, she also loves eating ice cubes - crunch, crunch, crunch - also much to her father's dismay)
The first thing sage does when she comes outside is b-line it for the nearest snow bank, grab a handful and start munching away.  One day it was really cold so we made the kids come in, but the only way to stop Sage's fit over it was to make her a little snow snack.

 

Since Sage's toddler legs are still acclimatizing to winter conditions Bel is insanely sweet to help her work her way through deep snow in clunky boots.  I love her for it and so does Sage.

Some days it's shortlived, often Jack will come in cold and/or crying within minutes, but Bel and Sage will stay out to the bitter end, coming in with numb toes and bright red cheeks and noses.

Whether it lasts for 5 minutes or 50 - I love this view from my warm house - my 3 lovelies getting fresh air and entertaining themselves.

pancakes on the floor

almost a decade ago, Ryan and I got married.  That first summer together we moved to Cali for work - I couldn't quite handle the mental rigors of selling pest control and ended up getting an 8-5 temp job.  I was much happier doing this, but the down side was I got home hours before my other half.  there were a lot of days that i really missed him - i was lonely and i needed something to comfort me and help me feel at home in our empty, temporary apartment.  so i would cook pancakes and eat them on the floor, with peanut butter and syrup and cinnamon - and i felt much better.

sometimes i have these moments when i realize i don't have a plan and i don't have the motivation i want/need to make it through those last needy hours before bedtime and that's when i really want my other half to swoop in and take the pressure off of me.  but tonight Ryan was on call and i just knew that we wouldn't get to see him - and i missed him.  so for dinner i cooked pancakes and we ate them on the floor, with peanut butter and syrup and cinnamon - and i felt much better. 

 

all these years later and i still have the same coping mechanism for loneliness - pancakes - and now i have 3 lovelies to share them with.

the storms of life

today was a storm. ug - a day when i felt frustrated, overwhelmed and inadequate all. day. long.  i was surrounded by clutter, time consuming, mentally taxing clutter, papers and junk covering every flat surface - laundry begging to be folded, papers begging to be resolved, followed up on, and filed, and of course children  begging for and needing attention and all the emotions of built up stress swirling around inside of me.  and instead of ignoring the clutter for yet another day, i ignored my kids, i tried to catch up on the daily maintenance tasks (and still don't feel like i'm catching up).  i couldn't wait till bedtime.  finally it came and as we squeezed in one true story (a tradition started by my nephews years ago, who requested at bedtime, not a book, but a "true story" from their mom's life).

the last couple nights i've been telling my kids bits and pieces of my family's infamous hike on the pinel trail.  this trip was the perfect storm for my family - blood, tears and urine all spilt in the first 30 minutes, followed by a literal storm in the first 3 hours.  tonight i told them about when the storm rolled in.

there we were hiking along the Alaskan tundra, my young, tough, adventurous parents and 4 kids ages 3-12, when the fog crept in, and got thicker and thicker, the wind began to pick up, and the trail disappeared.  We decided to pitch the tent and hunker down for the night.  I remember so well huddling in that tent - it felt like the wind was going to rip that tent apart and blow us away - it was cold and loud and i was scared.  i didn't like it and i wanted it to be over.  i remember my mom took me under her arm and told me so confidently - it's just the wind - it's pretty strong, but we're gonna be just fine.

and that's what i needed to remember today, as the storm raged around me and inside me - it's just clutter, it's just a bad mood, it's just whining and yelling and tears, it's just a few tasks that will get done eventually - it's pretty overwhelming at times, but i'm gonna be just fine.

mish mash and a little mush

(just found this draft from a couple months ago - i think i'll keep it for the record)
my phone is often lying around just waiting to become prey to my children.  tonight i was going through my camera roll and found about 20 self portraits of bel, 15 of jack and a 1min 22sec video by sage.  it was pretty awesome.  i often wonder what it would be like to watch our home life from the outside and watching, mostly listening, to that video was a tiny glimpse - it was amazing how much it caught - sage's independent babbling, me nicely nagging and answering questions (two things i do a lot of), bel talking about jewelry and jack being melodramatic when he didn't get his way.  i know i am far more entertained by my children than anyone else, but that is just part of my job description.  so tonight, a little mish mash glimpse into what's been going on lately.


just a couple thoughts...

today as i was pushing all three kids on the swings, i couldn't help but smile - they were all giggling, smiling, happy, completely in their comfort zone - at home, with mom and dad, barefoot in the sunshine.  I spend so much time with my kids in their comfort zone that i often forget the way they act when they are outside of it - i am repeatedly surprised by their behavior around people they don't know well, or places they've never been, my brave, talkative children latch on to me for dear life, not wanting to respond verbally or even acknowledge they've been spoken to.  I can't count how many people have told me what a serious baby Sage is - Serious Sage, one friend of mine calls her.  but at home, she practically smiles on command, she giggles, she babbles, she plays along with our games, she follows us around, never wanting to be still and rarely wanting to be alone.  She is not so serious to us.

Then there is Jack, the boy who never stops talking - he is full of stories and questions and explanations - he talks to me and ryan and bel and sage and strangers (as long as i'm close and he's in the right mood), he lectures me and bel, he screams when he's upset, he even talks when he is exhausted (the trick to get him to sleep is to make him stop moving and stop talking at the same time for a full minute and then he'll be out in a jiffy).  he is a creative self entertainer, who loves to play with water, build things, sneak treats and be in cozy places.

And of course my Bel, I forget how reserved she can be because she is one of my favorite people to talk to in the whole wide world.  She always has been - (pardon my extra details for a moment) - we moved away from our comfort zone, Cache Valley, 3 months after she was born.  I stopped working in an actively social office, hanging out with friends, frequent visits to family, ryan was working long days - there we were - lone companions.  she was often the only person i had to talk to for a long time, months.  And so i did, i talked to her and lucky for me, she learned quickly and she talked back to me.  even with all the words we've exchanged, i can't quite think of the right ones to describe how happy it made me to talk with her from such a young age, and it still does.  she is artistic and detail oriented, a thinker and determined learner, thoughtful and loving, sensitive and sweet.  so (back to the original strain here) when she doesn't talk to others, i am so surprised and a little sad for them, that my ever so articulate daughter is hesitant to speak.  I suppose that is one of the best parts of being a parent (or a spouse or a sibling or a true friend) - you get to know who a person really is, when their guard is down and their personality and thoughts flow from them freely and you get to drink it in - their true genuine self.  it makes me feel so lucky. i am so lucky, so blessed.

at the very top of my list of favorite things about my life right now is story time.  i get very impatient during bedtime prep because it's at the end of the day and my nerves are usually wearing thin and i don't want it to cut into our story time.  because during story time me and bel and jack all cuddle in close and read together.  there is no whining, no arguing, no nagging and for a glorious 20-40 minutes we all just enjoy a good story (and some kinda boring ones, a few stupid ones, a bunch that ryan says, "i could've written that one").  it does so much good for my soul to end the day on that note - it's something that i look forward to every. single. day.

i had a dream...

tonight, it was almost an hour past bedtime - nevertheless - belen, jack and i sat at the table eating our much anticipated dessert of turtle bars and milk.  it was beyond worth it because of the conversation that we had.  it went something like this -
jack said, "last night, i had a dream about dad!"
bel chipped in, "that he played with you all day?"
jack concurred enthusiastically, "ya! and he didn't even have to go to work. ever!"
bel caught the vision, "and he never had to, cuz we just had money, our house was full of like a hundred dollars, just tons of quarters and dollars and stuff"
jack then continued with one of his incredibly detailed and elaborate descriptions of what took place in the dream, (which even when i am fully engaged in listening i still can't quite make sense of - as a side note, i love this trait about him - he is a story teller, there is so much going on in that mind/imagination of his - i'm really looking forward to the day when it starts making a little more sense to my rusty adult imagination).

and in the middle of this excitement and enthusiasm i was so touched that the root of it all was the fantasy of simply playing with their dad - all. day. long.  it's been a busy week, in a busy month, following the pattern of a busy year, with more demanding years ahead - and sometimes, we don't see Ryan as much as we'd like to.  yesterday, bel called him to see if he would be home for dinner - later we got a text estimating 7ish, then throughout the evening the time got pushed later and later and later as more and more cases got added to his schedule.  when he got home at 10:30 - the kids were asleep. he did what he always does when this happens - he went up to see them as they slept.  a few times i've hung back in the shadows and i hear him talk to them in their sleep.  he loves them so much.  i know that he has the same dream that jack had last night - that he gets to play with his kids all day and he doesn't even have to go to work.  (heck, he talks about it all the time - stumbling upon millions of dollars and spending the rest of our lives focussing on giving our kids the most amazing lives ever, dirt biking in the sand dunes, traveling the world, doing service and spending all our time together living a totally unrealistically fun AND productive life) when he came back down to eat dinner, he looked at me and asked, "so do the kids notice when i don't come home? do they miss me when i'm gone?"

i could answer a resounding yes, because they do notice when he's not around, they do miss him when he's gone.  They love him and want to be with him and we have conversations about him all the time.  he's kind of a hero around here, arriving home to happy screams of "daddy!!!" (even Sage lurches in excitement at the sound of his voice or the sight of his face), swooping in to rescue a drained mama, to finish the dishes and steamroll the kiddos into fits of giggles, to be an example of hard work and resilient attitude, endurance of every kind and love in every condition.  he's my hero and theirs - he's the best kind of dream - the kind that is there when you wake up.  and though we miss him, there's always a day off on the horizon.

inquisitive little minds

This evening we were driving to visit Ryan at work, out of the blue Jack asked, "mom how do babies get out of mommies tummies?"

me - "well... mom's have a special hole in their bodies and that's where they come out."

jack - "i know that already mom - where's the hole? that's what i'm wondering."

me - hesitant to get into the details, but remembering that i always want to be honest with my kids, "well... it's actually down by their bums.  what made you think of babies?" (wanting to ward off any more specific questions, but not change the subject too drastically)

jack - "oh i'm just thinkin 'bout stuff back here." 

which he absolutely does - he asks some of the greatest questions and says some really smart, entertaining, original things - i love his mind