February Recap

Valentines Highlights

1. Finding this note in a very clean play room. 

 Translation: "This is a Valentine for Mom and Dad. I thought you would like my Valentine for you. Is a Valentine from Olivia. I cleaned the playroom". How sweet is that?! I love her.

2. Getting primped for our dinner with Dad.

 3. Dad came home with delicious Indian food, so I didn't have to cook, and made some delicious Mango Lassi. I'm a lucky girl.

 4. My contribution to the day, I surprised Jaron with some home-aid chocolate truffles. Yum I tell you. Yum. 

Warner's Birthday Party

We did a superhero theme, and set up an obstacle course that the kids had to complete before earning their cape and mask. Once they earned their superhero outfit, we went in the family room, gathered round, and waited for the delivery of their first mission which of course was to find and capture a bad guy, in this case "the riddler" aka (great kid named Carter Sterling from our ward). Jaron hid around the corner and flew in his toy helicopter which had a little scroll of paper attached to it that read "The Riddler is on the loose and has stolen my jewels! Find him superhero's and get my jewels back". Or something like that. The kids had a blast. A few of them were like "What? There is a bad guy coming to your house? Like, right now?"

I later on found out that one of the more quieter of Warner's friends went home and exclaimed to her Mom "Mom! I captured a bad guy, and tied him up, and then. . . he ate cake with us".  I think she was a little confused by that. 

 Somebody may or may not have gotten into the cake right before the birthday boy, I bet you can guess who.

 Little Houdini.

 Though you can't tell from the picture, Warner was pretty stoked about his new Captain America outfit. Doesn't he look so manly?

I wondered how Warner would handle being the center of attention for a day, because he is so not used to that, but he was just the same old Warner, kind of quiet and content. At one point his friends took over in the unwrapping of his presents for him, and he didn't even care he just watched. 

On Warner's actual birthday I asked him what he wanted to do. He simply wanted to stay at home during the day with me and play with his birthday toys. So Warner. I love it. He is such a home body. Then for dinner he wanted to go to Ikea and have meat balls and play in the balls. It was a really special day. My gift to him was simply my time. I didn't worry about cleaning or running errands, I simply left myself open to give him attention. The consequence was playing on the floor with his new airplane launcher for about an hour, then reading books for another hour, then after lunch taking a little snooze together. It was the perfect day for me at least. :) I love this boy. I'm so grateful he is a part of our life. 

Opening Presents in the morning before Dad left to work.

Opening his present from Grandma and Grandpa Brown

Opening his present from Grandma and Grandpa Paxman

The sweet birthday boy on our hang out day at home.

Playing with his airplane launcher.

He's in there. You just can't tell because his lump of a person is so small.

 

 

 

 

I wonder what March will hold in store for us? Home renovations I think.

Right Now

Right now the house is so quiet.

Mmmmmmm.

Breathe.

What should I do? I look around.

Jaron is at mutual. The kids are all asleep.

I could listen to some music or a maybe a conference talk? Maybe a radio-lab podcast while I fold laundry and tidy up the house.

I could take a bath and just sit and soak for awhile.

I could sit down and read my book.

I could pay a visit to my pal Tony Horton by popping in the DVD and sweating my brains out.  Nah. . .

I could watch a show.

I could start planning a birthday party for a special little soon-to-be four year old.

Hmm. The options seem so endless. The time to myself so precious.

Breathe in. Breathe out.


I am

cleaning.

Not because I have to, but because I want to. I don't turn on a conference talk, or any music, or a radiolab, or the TV.  The peace and quiet feels too pure to be disturbed. It feels cozy and gentle on my ears and on my brain.

I look at my floor, and decide we must have had a very fun day, because it is very MESSY.  I sweep up bits and peaces of rice, veggies, cheese, and wipe up some spilled water. It makes me smile, because it means my kids ate healthy food today. It means I'm doing my part to keep their bodies growing strong and healthy.

There are splotches of spilled paint, which means that the kids were creative today. It also means that we have several very beautiful new pieces of artwork decorating the island in the kitchen.  

I sweep around a corner. I find little bits and pieces of a broken red crayon, and oh what's this, a bite out of one of them? I guess that means Buster explored art too today, in his own little way, using his favorite one of his five senses.

Ahh.

I love cleaning when the kids are asleep.

It isn't work at all. It's therapy, and it makes me grateful. Grateful for my home. Grateful for my healthy children. Grateful for my healthy body. Grateful for my loving husband who does so much for me and the kids. Grateful for his wonderful job that he loves, and that takes care of us.  Grateful for good friends. Grateful for healthy food. And grateful for peace and quiet.


Isn't it funny how work can be so relaxing when you can just dive in uniterrupted and lose yourself in your thoughts while you clean? 

Tomorrow my kids are going to wake up to a clean house. It doesn't always work out this way, but tomorrow it is going to work out this way. And, I'm happy doing what I'm doing.

Happy Valentines Day tomorrow. I'm grateful for all of my family and friends who I love. You have all inspired, taught, and strengthened me in one way or another. I can say that, because I pretty much know exactly who looks at this blog, and I mean it when I say I Love you! So consider yourself hugged.

Now. Go and give someone else a hug in your house.

Right now! 

XOXOXOXO

My busy 20 month old.

Buster is our little clown, our mess maker, our sneak, and our candy Houdini.

Buster loves FOOD, and could eat all day long. Thankfully he is not a picky eater at all. As long as it's edible he will eat it, well, accept for straight up lemons, no wait - he ended up liking that too after a while. I know what you're thinking, "evil parents".  Trust me, it was worth his hilarious sour expressions. Ok, I'm evil.

I love the picture on the left where he is licking his arm. He forgot where his Popsicle was, and then after I took the picture, he immediatly stopped licking his arm and got a confused look on his face. When he located his Popsicle once again, he got a big smile and resumed the licking.

Buster loves exploring.

 But mostly, he loves climbing on top of things he shouldn't be, usually to sneak something.

Honestly, we have so many fun toys of all shapes and sizes, but this kid doesn't want anything to do with any of them. If I he is in the kitchen with me, which is where I spend most of my time, which means it's where he spends most of his time, if I turn my back for one second he has usually climbed on top of a counter or a table and has spilled over either the remains of a green smoothie, a cup of milk, or a cup of water.  I can't tell you how many spills in a day I clean up. If he weren't so darn cute, I might actually be upset, but I usually just smile and call him my rascal and set him down from the table and clean up the mess.   I've started having him help to wipe up the spills. He grunts while he does it. I don't know where he gets that from, its so odd, but funny too. 

When he's not busy climbing on top of something, he sorts through the trash, or puts things in the trash (that aren't trash). I guess it's what he sees us doing, he just doesn't know what is trash and what isn't. 

He really is quite the little Houdini, especially when it comes to candy. Like my other children, he has a sensor that goes off somewhere in his body when he senses sugar is near. The other day we were at a party and Buster went missing for about 5 or 10 minutes. I wasn't worried, because their house, thankfully, was very child proof. When he finally meandered back in the room where we were all hanging out, he had a sucker in his mouth. It turns out, that in the five minutes he had gone missing, he had found and ingested one bag of m&m's, one bag of skittles, and a sucker. We know this, because we found the evidence in the office of the host of the party. There on top of the office desk was a big glass vase full of candy. Buster spotted it, pushed a chair over to the desk, climbed on top of the desk and took the lid off of the vase and began picking out his loot. After eating a few bags of candy, he decided to go for the sucker, but the vase was too tall for his little arms to reach that sucker. So, he somehow, gently pulled this huge heavy vase onto the floor below, where he then dumped out its contents until he got his sucker.  Houdini I tell you.  The Candy Houdini. That's going to be his new nickname.

 Buster loves playing with Warner. Having two boys close together is so fun. They get so crazy together. It's hilarious to watch them fight, because Warner will take a swing at Buster, but purposely miss, because he is kind of a tender little soul, after all usually he just swings his arms to shoo Buster away from whatever he is messing with, which is usually something Warner has worked hard to create. Well, anyway, the other day Warner took a swing, and only sort of made contact, then he turned to walk away, and Buster just straight up charged him while growling angrily. Buster grabbed the back of Warner's shirt and yanked as hard as he could. Warner went down and started whimpering  This struck a funny bone in Buster, and in a moment all of his anger was replaced by laughter of the conquering sort. This surprised Warner, and made him laugh. It then turned into a giggle fest, and it ended with Warner running out of the room, and Buster toddling happily after him. Within seconds they went from a brawl to happily playing. I love them.

 Seriously what's not to love? Look at this little snuggle buns.