Staying in Chicago

Well this has been a roller coaster the past few weeks over the whole transfer to Arizona. Ben and I went to the temple a few weeks ago just for some extra guidance in what we should do. I wasn't thinking about anything really, and had kind of forgotten the whole reason we were there, when a sudden thought popped in my head "Your work here is not finished" I immediately thought of 1.Family History and 2.the Ward-and the help it needs. During this time I was pretty frustrated with the primary president and had kind of given up with the thought that we could be leaving anyway. So after the temple when Ben and I were talking I told him about what I felt. He said he'd never thought about it that way...whether our (or mine since he doesn't do much but work at work) here is done. That we were here for another reason besides his residency. Then we decided to could have just meant that even if we did move I still had a couple months left with Sandra so I couldn't check out quite yet. That made Ben feel better.

Then he went to AZ for an interview and when I talked to him that night I could tell he was a little disappointed in the program...that it wasn't everything he thought it would be. I immediately felt sick in my stomach and said it sounded too risky of a move and that we should just stay. He agreed...for a few days but then went back to work and got frustrated with everything there and started leaning towards AZ again. Things went back and forth like this until this last weekend. He decided it would be a better program to be at and really hoped they would pick him. It was between 2 girl residents and him.

The whole time I was frustrated to not have an answer so I could move forward with some decisions that needed to be made but felt at peace that what happens would be the right thing. We both prayed for that.

Tonight Ben got the call that they had picked the girl with a masters degree and some years of research. My heart just broke in disappointment for him but I felt such relief to be staying. We are familiar with things here. My parents are here. Moonlighting is here. So now hopefully Ben can help them get motivated to be a better program here.

I am just so so so grateful for the guidance we have in our lives. I am grateful for the power of prayer. for the comfort it can give. I am grateful for the Spirit and the promptings it gives. I am grateful for the Temple.

I know Ben will be a great oral surgeon, but most of all he is a great person & husband & father. When we called I could tell he was disappointed but he didn't let it get him down. He talked about the positive things here and that he still had the most important things in life. A family he loves. And that he is blessed to be in a program at all!

I had to write a talk for church about finding happiness now. Not putting it off until some furture thing happened. Not making your happiness dependent on your life going  a certain way. Anchor your happiness to eternal things that will truly make you happy. Ben has done that here. This didn't go as he hoped yet he knows it isn't the most important thing in his life.
We love him!

I'm sorry Walmart

I owe Walmart an apology. I talk crap about it all the time. I say it is ghetto, dirty, understocked, the isles are too small, it has horrible parking and mostly lazy workers (except Erika...I look for her line every time I'm there.) I groan when I have to go and I avoid the place on the weekends like the plague. BUT I honestly do not know what we would do without it. It is because of Walmart that we have been able to survive off of Ben's income. Even the Target out here is more expensive and has too many temptations for me to shop there much.

Last week I spent a whole day shopping for Colin a new pair of shoes. He had been wearing a pair of Converse we'd found at the thrift store and had started complaining that his foot hurt really bad. Come to find out his 2 pairs of shoes are both 3 sizes too small!! (when you count the half sizes) Poor kid. I felt like a horrible mom. Then I felt even worse when we went shoe shopping and the ones he really liked and picked out we couldn't buy...they were $62!! So I shopped and shopped for a pair I thought he would like that wouldn't wipe our bank account clean. I came home with a pair similar to the ones he had wanted that were half the cost, which was still a lot for me to swallow but he said they felt funny so I returned them. I was so frustrated. Frustrated he wouldn't go shopping with me, frustrated kids shoes have gotten so expensive, and frustrated at being frustrated. Then I went to Walmart and a heavenly "Tender Mercy" landed in my lap when their nike look a like tennis shoes (for his PE class) were on clearance for $5! and there was a pair of cool looking skate shoes for $13. I bought them and prayed on the way home he would like them. He LOVED them. Said they felt really good on his feet and are more comfortable then the Nikes I had tried before. So, Thank you WALMART!! And thank you my child has yet to care about brand names :)

BUT the shoes weren't the only thing I found on that shopping trip. Every year when Easter comes I dream about buying my boys Easter sunday outfits. Cool ones that you'd see in a GAP ad or something and every year I go shopping, buy something, and ALWAYS return it b/c 1. my boys don't care and 2. I just can't justify the cost. So when I was shoe shopping in the mall I couldn't help but check out the easter clothes. I tried the cutest little outift on Evrett at Old Navy that had a little tie and sweater vest....but it would have been $40 so we didn't get it. When I was at Walmart I decided to check the clothes and found a nice shirt and sweater for Evrett for $7 and new shirts & tie sets for the boys for $10. Not quite a cool looking as GAP but nevertheless they were able to have something new, clean (does anyone else's kids get filthy at church?), and springy looking and I think they looked pretty dang cute :)

Now with all that said I am very grateful that Ben does have a job and these were my worst frustrations of last week. I'm not complaining about our situation or anything and know we have a lot to be grateful for :) And right now I am very grateful for Walmart.

Evrett's Sillies

Evrett: "Mom you have a fat belly"

Me: I do!?!? I look fat?

Evrett: Yes, right there! (pointing to my chest)

Me: Oh, that isn't my belly. My belly is down here.

Evrett: Oh. Then whats those phings (things)?

Me: Those are my boobs. Girls have boobs.

Evrett: Oh. You have fat boobs.

Then he walked off.


***He loves watching dora & diego on TV. One day he just started counting in spanish and now walks around telling people he knows spanish :)

FELIZ CUMPLEANOS!

Brannon's classmate, Kevin, invited us to his birthday party. Our friends, the beemsters, were invited too since they are the neighbors. It was so much fun b/c everyone was hispanic and spoke mostly spanish. I just loved it. I get so bored at RS activities and girls nights but things like this are just fun to me. The kids played in the garage b/c of rain and had bike and running races down the alley.

We ate some weird spicy hotdog spaghetti that was kinda nasty and some yummy grilled chicken.

 They had a balloon clown come and the kids LOVED it!

 Then we hungout inside and watched Spiderman 3 in espanol while waiting for cake

 Singing Happy Birthday

 They served some fruit cake that the boys didn't like and some Flan that Brannon loved...or maybe he was just hungry from the yucky dinner...

Evrett was home sleeping with Ben but the boys were nice and shared their balloon creations with him.

I hadn't been out of the house to do anything fun for awhile and Ben had been really busy so it was so nice to get out and talk to some people who were so totally different from what I'm used to. I loved it!

And the best part was that we got to do it again the following week!! Our next door neighbors, (Enrique) little girl was having her 3rd birthday party. We were the only non-family & white people there and, again, had so much fun! We talked with the younger generation b/c they speak english. The older people-grandparents-speak only spanish.

The boys with Nataly-the Birthday Girl!

The funnest part for me was teh food. It was SO good! They hired these taco guys to come and cook & serve the food right there. They had pork, steak, and sausage on mini corn tortillas with onion, cilantro, and lime to garnish and a couple of salsas to try. I stuck with the mild one :)
The guy in the green shirt is Enrique and his daughter, Lorena, is 17 years old on the right. Lorena's brother, Edwardo, is the birthday girl's dad.

 Our back yards.

 Yummy food!

 After a bit all the boys ended up in our yard and all the little girls in their yard. It was kinda funny.

 Nataly and her Primas (cousins) in their matching skirts. 

 They had TWO pinatas!!

 I just LOVE this picture. Nataly loves to touch Evrett's hair and face :) and immediately put her arm around him when I said I was taking a pic

 In the garage signing Happy Birthday! It was a cute "Tangled" themed cake for the kids.

 And some fruit jello and a fruit salad for dessert. I ate the whole bowl of the fruit salad. It had walnuts, apples, cocnut, mangos?, and some other yummy stuff chopped up really small and then a mexican cream on top. It was so yummy!

I am really going to miss doing fun things like this when we move to some boring cookie cutter neighborhood. Parts of me are excited..it will be good for the boys to have more friends and fit in better but I sure will miss the diversity!

From Doggies to Tooth Fairy

 It all began with this little rascal was running around the house naked. Naked and barking like a dog. Brannon decided to join in the fun and they were throwing the tennis ball back and forth to "fetch".

However Brannon ended up knocking his FIRST tooth out when he tried to actually fetch the ball with his mouth! He was a little panicked and excited about it

 Grammy J sent us the cutest little package to hold their teeth in. First these mini felt envelopes to put the tooth in. Each has their name printed on a teeny tiny tooth button

 Then that goes in a canister for the tooth fairy to find. He was so excited to put it under his pillow!

 And even more excited to find his one dollar and two quarters!

My babies are getting old!

BASEBALL Season!

 Baseball Season has officially started and I am so excited! I used to think it was such a boring sport to watch but when it is your own kids it is so much fun! They opened the season with a big parade. Each team had a pick up truck the kids got to ride in for about a mile...they loved it! Both boys are on the same teams and have same coaches as last year which made us all really happy. They are some great coaches!

Colin with the Indians:

Brannon on the Nationals:

 It was a random COLD day for spring and I did not dress any of us warm enough. Poor brannon was freezing the whole time!

 The kids all had candy to throw to spectators watching the parade but b/c of the cold weather there were not very made people out. This was fine with Evrett b/c all the kids decided to throw the candy to him :) Colin's team also had silly string :)

 Evrett felt sick by the end from all the candy he'd eaten...

School Projects

 Brannon's class has been learning all about Frogs for the past few weeks and he has LOVED it! He was so so so excited for the day for parents to come visit during school to see everything they had learned. Then the morning of, Evrett woke up with a cold and really really bad asthma. He didn't have a fever but was having a really hard time breathing and his medicine was not helping at all. So enter SUPER GRANDMA. She dropped everything she had going on that day to drive out and go to the school with Brannon while I spent a few hours at the doc getting Evrett better. (it took two rounds of double meds to get is O2 levels up to 90/91. I dont' want to even think about what it was before that. After he had a quick recovery)

Lots of his papers and worksheets.

More projects he made. He can tell you tons of cool facts about frogs

The next week was Colin's turn to show us his stuff. Lucky kid got both parents there since Ben was post call (and on anesthesia so gets sleep at night). They did a "Wizard of Oz" unit and learned about the movie, read the books, and saw the play. Then they learned about weather and Tornados! They put together a tornado safety packet and, a color mobile and a little science project to make your own tornados. He was very proud and it was really cute. AFterwards they fed us parents some cookies and juice and then sang some songs from the movie. It was a lot of fun...

Preschool Growth

Just some cute pics from another time I taught preschool. The two other boys were sick so it was just Evrett and all his "girlfriends" :) He loved it. Their favorite snack to have is the air popped popcorn. For the lesson we learned about plants and gardening SO we planted our very own flower seeds in some recycled tin cans. The kids love seeing them grow!

Lydia, Edyn, Reese, Evrett

Spring Break

 boys had 7 full days off for spring break (plus 2 weekends!) so it was tempting to try and do something extra fun but when it came down to it none of us wanted to. We've become a busier family running between school stuff, scouts, basketball, baseball, etc. (I know this is just the beginning) that when we have days off we just like to hangout at home without having to go anywhere.

So one day we went to the Zoo with our friends, the Beemsters. I think Evrett wanted to climb in the cage with the roaring lions!

Evrett got a cold which usually means he gets asthma. Brannon was so sweet to read to him during his treatments.

 I taught preschool one day and I have to say it was the easiest day yet! Colin and Brannon taught most of it :) They sang with them and read them stories and then helped with the craft and snack time. I loved having them there!

We went to my parents for a few days and got to see Jess in two of her track meets. She had a pulled hamstring so she didn't run but she did her jumps. Here are the boys hanging out with Jess and her friends

 Colin made a "cow bell" out of a piece of a broken fence. It was really loud and fun to use when cheering!

The boys dug in the dirt at the second track meet.

 Evrett fed at least half his food to Toby...

 We went with Grandma to see a Snow White movie called "Mirror Mirror" It was cute but didn't hold Evrett's attention much past the credits. The popcorn helped for a bit then he ended up playing in the isle and with a piece of gum.

 One night we had FHE and I had made a cake for refreshments. Well, our lesson must have been too long b/c towards the end we realized Evrett had disappeared and found him eating cake. He had gotten a knife and made lots of cuts until he got a chunk out!

Evrett also had to get a haircut b/c that gum he was playing with at the movie got stuck in his hair and wouldn't come out. But we think he looks pretty cute  with his new do :)

 Our friend, Abby Grifftts, sent us a "flat abby" to hangout with all week. We took her to our favorite place here in Berwyn (and in chicago) Freddys! We even got a picture of her with the owners who were thrilled to know their story would go all the way to CA!

 She helped Evrett make muffins too :)

Then the boys watched more TV and played more video/computer games then I'd like to admit :) It was a fun break!