Valentines Day

Ben was scheduled to work on Valentines day and night so we decided to celebrate the weekend before. We really hate paying $9/hr to have a babysitter watch the kids so we did a family date :) which was lots of fun. We went to Portillos, a local hamburger chain, and instead of sticking to our normal frugal dollar menu & shared fries and water only menu we got TWO orders of fries, onion rings, and TWO chocolate milkshakes to share! YUM! and can you believe this....our kids had never had a milkshake before! So it really was a special trip!

All three boys worked hard on filling out their valentines. There were really excited to pick some out after getting a fun package from Grammy & Grandpa J., Megan & Sam that was full of fun v-day cards.


Here is what they each picked out: Brannon-wild animals Colin-paper airplanes & Evrett-sports balls. We did manage a handmade "BOMB" for each of the boys' teachers. Brannon did NOT like these. He was so nervous the school would think it was real he would get in trouble for bringing a bomb to school...luckily their teachers just thought they were cute :)

I saw these funny Harry Potter valentines on Pinterest so had to print them off for my Valentine to the kids & Ben. We got some good laughs! Then each kids got a box of sugary junk cereal with a star wars pen inside. I'd set this up after they went to bed the night before but Evrett came out to get a drink(his room is right off the dining room) I thought I had distrated him enough to not notice but about 10 minutes later I was in the basement and heard the chairs being moved around a bunch and went up to find him looking at everything. When I put him back to bed he told me he hoped he didn't get the "black star wars scary guy who cuts hands off b/c he (evrett) didn't want to get his hand cut off because it would hurt" WHAT! I didn't even know he had seen star wars but he knew that Darth Vador cut Luke's hand off and was worried he'd get that pen.



This is what I got. Some beautiful drawings from the boys. A service coupon from Colin. and a funny card from Ben.

Ben also surprised me with a new watch! My old one broke back in Nov. but when I went to get a new one I didn't have the $40 to buy the one I liked (I've had the same style for about 10 years so I can do all the functions with my eyes closed) so I bought the cheap target $10 look-a-like and I HATED THE CRAP OUT OF IT! The dumb thing was so complicated to set any time or alarms. I couldn't even see the date/day (i never realized how lost in the week I get without my watch telling me what day of the week it is!) and the crazy thing had a mind of its own. The alarm would go off all hours of the night but said it was OFF so I was getting horrible sleep. Needless to say it was such a thoughtful and LOVED gift and now every time I check to see the date or time I think how lucky I have to have Ben :) mushy mushy cheezy but true.



I got Ben a real masculine gift:

My sister got the CD for Christmas and I'd heard Ben say a few times that he wanted to copy it onto his laptop but kept forgetting. Not too exciting but I tried. The poor guy gets gift gypped a lot.

I was teaching EVret's preschool on V-day but we decided to have a playgoup party instead. We met at the church with some balls and valentines to swap. It was fun! Evrett gets so quite and reserved around other kids so its fun to watch him run and play with kids his own age.

Locked Out

The other day the boys decided to play outside after school. I was in the basement on the computer looking up recipes for dinner when I heard tons of pounding on the windows. I went to look and Colin was yelling that they were locked out. I went to the back door and sure enough...it was double locked! I let them in, then we all went to go upstairs but that door was shut and locked too!! Evrett was on the other side laughing at us. He locked us out for about 10 minutes. He took all her clothes off and yelled funny things at us through the keyhole in the old door. He'd say "I see you mom! haha you can't get in" and lots of things about his bum. He was so silly! He finally decided to let us in. He'd totally thought the whole thing through b/c he had to push the green stool over to the door to even reach the lock, so it definitely didn't happen on accident.

More funny pics:

It still amazes me how quick kids pick up on things...especially boys and electronics! Evrett knows how to use the keyboard better then I do...he knows all teh buttons to push for the pre-recorded pop songs he likes. So he climbs up and rocks out to himself in the big gold mirror and loves every second of it.


All the boys like to run on the treadmill when I'd done on it. One day Evrett told me he'd get his shoes so he could run with me. He came back dressed like this. It was pretty cute :) He likes me to ask him what number he is on and then he will say a high one like "7" with a huge proud smile on his face :) when in reality he is walking at a 1 speed :)


Twice now I've thought Evrett was napping only to find him naked scarfing candy that was supposed to by hidden from him. What to do with this kid!!?!??

Colin's Baptism

There really is something magical about being 8 years old. Most of my childhood memories start about then and it freaks me out that I have a kid that old! Colin has matured a lot in the last few months, especially spiritually. He has become very very honest and always tries to do the right thing. He won't say if he has a favorite teacher or friend b/c he doesn't want to make anyone feel bad.

A good example is when he and Brannon accidentally found one of their gifts hiding in my closet. Brannon told me first b/c he figured since he saw it he should get to play with it. He PROMISED me Colin hadn't seen it yet and then again PROMISED he wouldn't tell Colin. Well a couple days later Colin said something that made it sound like he knew about it too. I pulled Brannon aside and AGAIN Bran PROMISED Colin didn't know. Well, Brannon needs some help with honesty because the next day Colin came up to me about in tears saying he needed to tell me something wrong he had done. They were playing hide and seek and found the gift and he felt SO bad that he hadn't told me yet. He hadn't even tried looking at it again and it was a total accident but he felt he hadn't been honest about it. (on a side note I again asked Brannon and only after telling him Colin told me he knew he finally spilled the truth. We had a good talk about being honest. He has 16 more months to mature up and I home it happens! :)

So on to the actual Baptism. I wasn't very happy when I found out they have to get baptized on a STake Baptism day. In my head I imagined something like an assembly line for kids. One in, one out and noting personal about it. So I will admit I threw a fit to myself for a while over it. But it ended up being perfect. We were sure Ben would have the day off since the baptisms are the first Sat of the month and his schedule doesn't come out until right before that but I prayed and prayed it would work out and it did. He only had 2 days off in Feb. and that sat was one of them. And the only other kid getting baptized was Nathan Garner, his friend at church, so it was really cool for them and everyone there was just from our ward so it really was a neat experience (I went to one with two different wards and it was like 2 diff. baptisms happening at the same time. No one talked to eachother and one talk was directed to one kid and the other talk to another. It was a strange feeling. I was so worried Colin's would be like that.) And it ended up being GREAT that it was a Stake thing b/c I didn't have to do a thing. We picked a song, asked my dad to say the closing prayer, and Colin's primary teacher Brother Edmunds, to give a talk and that was it. The Stake organized EVERYthing else so it was a really great stress-free day.

He was baptized on Feb. 4th, 2012 which happened to be exactly 34 years to the day since my dad was baptized as a college student at BYU. We thought that was pretty neat.

We had it in the Stake Center (our regular building) that is on the 3200 block of Pulaski Ave. in Chicago. You drive down a really busy Mexican street full of venders and stores and sales and people, then through a run down neighborhood before getting to the building. On the other side and like 10 feet away are train tracks and then factories. In the middle of the baptism we had to pause while a train passed b/c it was too loud to talk over :)



Colin and Nathan Garner

Colin and Calib

Washburn boys, Colin and Calib Beemster

Everyone who attended: The Edmunds, Staleys, Garners and their family, Quijanos, Hickmans, Washburns, President Cannon, Morales, Cottrells.

Sandra Morales and Shannon Cottrell, the Primary President and counselor

We have some friends who the boys LOVE. The Quijanos and the Staley's at church. Neither couple has kids but they are all so good with kids. The husbands offered to since a musical number during the baptism and it will forever remain a sweet memory for us. They say with just a simple guitar and no piano. They sang "Baptism" and "When I am Baptized".

Colin's Real Birthday

Colin's real birthday was on Sunday and we kept it really low key. Ben got home that morning from an overnight shift so was exhausted. He slept most of the day but did get up for Colin to open presents and eat dinner & cake. We spent the day at church where they kids sang Happy Birthday to him and then he played with is new toys/legos. For dinner he requested one of his favorites "Stevie's Pasta" recipe from my dad. It is noodles, alfredo sauce, peas, carrots, onions, chicken and bacon all mixed up in one pot.





Honestly, I kinda forgot I'd need another cake for his real birthday so we had to get creative. We decided to make an ice cream sandwich cake topped with chocolate syrup, crushed oreos, whip cream and sprinkels. He was SO excited for it and it was yummy!




Colin was thrilled with his gifts. He got: A pack of drawing sketchpads, a cartoon drawing book, and the Percy Jackson series from his Johnson Grandparents. He was really excited for the drawing stuff and has kept really good care of his "professional" drawing books :) He got a new suit and shoes a Harry Potter book, and an alien lego set from his Hartmann grandparents. Aunt Jess and her boyfriend, Jon, got him a big bean bag chair to read in and some boxes of candy. We got him a new set of scriptures with his name engraved and Ben surprised him with another Harry Potter lego set he found for a great price.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of January

I'm going to do the Ugly first: The RUG

I finally was able to get rid of the nasty rug we had in our living room. We bought it when we moved to Philly at Ikea b/c it was cheap but we were dumb and didn't consider the fact that it was CREAM colored. Three kids, a bazillion playgroups, 2 kids potty trained, and a few months as a winter doormat later the thing probably should be burned. I did my best to clean it but there is only so much you can do.

I was given Amazon $$ as a Christmas gift and was thrilled when I happened across a rug that I loved (and had seen on pinterest :) for exactly $2.00 less then my Amazon money. Here it is in my crappy phone picture...I know it doesn't look that cute but in real life seeing it makes me happy :)



Now on to the GOOD:

*The Weather!! We have had a wonderful mild winter. 2 small snow storms of just 6-8" that melted within a week and then handfuls of 50ish degree weather! It has been nice. Not that I don't like snow...I have kind of missed it but since I have to do all the shoveling it has been nice to have less this year. I do have a great neighbor, Enrique, who just happens to be coming out to shovel his sidewalk when I do. We have a double lot so lots of sidewalk, and the driveway where the cars are parked and the alley way. It takes me HOURS to do by myself and I get so sore. Enrique always finishes his quickly and helps me with the rest of mine which has been such a blessing!

*Birthdays! This has been a fun month for us. 2 birthdays in our little family.
3 more in the extended family. and 3 friends parties for the kids.

The first birthday we celebrated this new year was Ben's. He turned the big 32! His schedule this month has sucked AND he was out of town in Florida for 5 days (I wish I could say he was in Disneyworld but no. He was in class from 7am until 8pm everyday...boring.) He flew home the day after his birthday so we didn't do a whole lot for him. We made one of his favorite meals: homemade mac n cheese and had a brownie sundae for dessert. He got a cool photo program for his computer from his parents and I bought him a new running shirt and some weights since he is trying to squeeze in some exercise time. I know not very fun, but everything "fun" for him is expensive and we just bought him a new laptop in dec that counts for his gifts for at least a year. Happy Birthday Ben! We love you :)

Here are the kids at their friend Benson's party. He is Evrett's age and had a Train party. The kids' lunches were packed in napsacks that they carried on a stick. It was really cute. Evrett has been talking about it since.








*My darling brother Braden sent up a Christmas package that my mom and I just died over. He is so cute and thoughtful. He bought my sister's and I bags. My mom got a "wallet thing", my dad got a tie, my kids got some sweet hand carved slingshots, and the older boys got keychain things. He put such thought and care into what each person would get and labeled everything so we'd end up with the right color, etc. He will make a great husband one day!



*And then I was able to go downtown with my parents, brother Cameron, and Brannon to see my cousin as the lead in a play. It was her first professional & paid performance as the little girl in The Secret Garden. She did a great job and Brannon & I were amazed at what she does as an 11 year old kid! Brannon sat through the whole thing and loved it and couldn't figure out how she remembered all her lines. We all forgot our cameras and my phone doesn't have a flash so the pic is crappy but she is the girl on the poster in the back.


The BAD. And it's been really really Bad.

1:00pm church.

It is SO SO SO hard to try to keep it "sabbathy" in our house all morning when your kids wake up before dawn and then suddenly need to dress & feed them, clean up lunch, and get out the door all within a one hour time period, then off to juggle primary with potty training Evrett who hates nursery and Ben rarely makes it and THEN sacrament meeting at the END of church. We get home and it is dark. We are starving and I'm too tired to cook. Then. THEN. THEN Evrett always falls asleep in the car on the way home and WONT WAKE UP. Here is a picture of him one Sunday, No it was MONDAY morning at 1:30am. We were having a movie party with cheese and crackers. I had desperately tried waking him up after church but he wouldn't do it, so I moved him into his bed hoping he'd just sleep through the night. Well, as I was getting ready for bed at 10:45pm he comes walking out of his room with a huge smile asking "Where my dinner at mom? I hungry!" So we were up until 2:30 watching TV and playing games until he got tired again.



The next week I fed him hand sanitizer to wake him up. NOT on purpose! I made him wake up for dinner and sat him at the table and squirted the stuff on his hands to wash away the church germs but he was so out of it he LICKED HIS HAND! That jolted the poor kid awake real fast.

Then he was sick and stayed home last sunday so it wasn't a problem. I'm totally at a loss as to what to do the 11 months we have left at this time!

With all that complaining said I'm just grateful for the testimony I have and for my older kids support so we can just keep on going despite the difficulties because we really do feel a difference (for the worse) when we don't go. Colin and Brannon were not mentioned earlier b/c they have been such great help at church. They do a lot to make things easier for me and I am grateful for that.