Joshua's Story

Joshua has been spending all summer drawing and writing with Hannah. Hannah loves to write stories about her baby piggies, so Joshua started doing it too. Here is Joshie's very first story. Nothing has been changed (Well, his letters were a mix of upper and lower case but that would take too much work to copy. But no added punctuation, no change of spelling, it's all completely his own work. He doesn't even ask for help with spelling while he's writing.)  Pretty good for a barely 5-year-old!

The Pigs

The three pigs wanted to g play outside. But dad said no

It was winter

It was cold

And that nhgit it snowd

Evrythig was berryd

And toys had iceicls on them

And wen pigs went outside the pigs got cold

The end.

Pics from Joshua's Birthday

Joshie turned 5 years old on June 19. We had a whole month full of celebrations, which is typical for us this time of year. Joshua wanted to go to the science museum for his birthday, so we took the kids and Joshie's friend Nicolas and enjoyed the day at Balboa. When we got home it was time for his birthday dinner (macaroni and cheese, pizza, and bell peppers), presents, and cake. I was pretty proud of the way his Angry Birds cake turned out :) He liked it too.

 This is my typical snuggly boy. He loves to rub his face all over mine. I didn't know you could snuggle with faces til I had Joshua. He looooves his mama! (Lol...As a side note, Seth recently said that when he sees Joshie snuggling with me he feels like he's watching a Greek play.)

Earlier in the month we took the kids to Ikea for their free monthly bday party for kids having birthdays during the month -- so all the kids got to go, and as birthday boys, Joshie and Eli both got presents. Eli got a stuffed doggy, and Joshie was given a big package of paper and markers with stamps on the end -- perfect since he had just recently gotten on a drawing kick. Hannah and Joshua loved getting their faces painted and watching the magic show, and Eli pretty much ran around the whole store (which is a big, big place!) during the party, and would only sit still when it was time for cake. Of course.  

(I know it doesn't look like it, but I promise they are having fun.)

Debt Free!

We paid off our last debt at the beginning of July, so we are now officially debt free!  It's a great feeling, but we still feel like we have a long way to go.  The next step is to save 3-6 months worth of expenses in an emergency fund which is going to take quite a bit longer (almost 2 years!) than paying off our debts (which took about 4 months).  So before we go all out on saving up for that emergency fund, we're going to use some of our tremendous "debt snowball" next month to go on a mini-shopping spree.  This is mainly just a way of rewarding ourselves for being disciplined for the last 4 months and to recharge our batteries for the next step.

One thing I might have done differently with step 2 is not stop our retirement fund contributions at work.  In order to pay off the debt faster, we put a hold on our retirement fund contributions.  Since I receive a matching contribution from work, we essentially passed on free money for retirement.  Oh well, lessons learned!  On to step 3!

Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day. I am so thankful to have such a great husband who has learned to make Mother's Day a big deal and who works really hard to make it special. He always comes up with something sweet. Hannah decided Friday night that what we really needed was "Mother's Weekend Off"! So yesterday I left for the whole day while Seth and the kids cleaned the house and went grocery shopping and made preparations for today. It was awesome. (I didn't spend the day at the spa or anything, I just went to work on an organizing project at my friend's house, and then had a tango rehearsal. Still, it was freedom to do something I wanted to do!)

This morning I woke up to a delicious breakfast of Belgian waffles and a pile of homemade cards. They are so cute. Joshie made four cards that said:
card #1: I love you Mom.
#2: I like you Mom.
#3: I miss you Mom.
#4: I missed you Mom!

He is so sweet. It's nice to know he missed me while I was gone yesterday. He is definitely my little Casanova...I can hardly do anything during the day for all the kissing he wants from me. (Side story: he loves this old song called "Tonight You Belong to Me". One time, I asked him if he belonged to me that night, and after thinking about it, he said "No...forever!" So the other day I asked him if he would belong to me forever, and he looked at me sadly with those huge blue eyes and said, "I can't when I grow up and get married....but I will miss you!")

Hannah gave me card with a "mystery fake thing" inside it (a fake dollar she had made) and a money riddle to solve (adding up the value of the coins she drew...she's been learning about counting money at school this past week :) She is so creative and I never get tired of the ideas she comes up with. The Mother's Day "card" she brought home from school went like this: "Mom you are as pretty as a rose. You are as ferocious as a lion. That is why I want to be like you. By Hannah." The rose part is just sweet, but the lion? My first reaction was, that can't be good thing...maybe I yell too much? But when I asked her about it she said that if a bad guy came to our door and wanted to kidnap her, I would punch him and push him away and keep her safe, and that's how I would be ferocious. And she's probably right! Then inside the card she made in Primary today she wrote "Wishing you a happy Mother's Day!" Funny to see that formal greeting card message written in her first-grader handwriting. She is so cute.

Eli is just super cute. When I went up with Hannah and Joshie and the other Primary kids for the Mother's Day song in sacrament meeting today, he freaked out and started crying "Mama! Mama!" So I just let Seth hand him over to me while I stood up there. As soon as he reached me he said "Sing!" and everyone laughed. (He was the only one of our kids happy to be up there!) Of course he only let me hold him for a minute and then he wiggled his way down and started wandering around the stand aiming for the organ...luckily the song ended before he managed to get to it!

I'm so thankful to have these wonderful, sweet little people in my life, even though the demands and challenges of mothering as so great. I was recently reminded that we don't always like the things that we are grateful for, and that's definitely true with being a parent. I am very thankful for each of them, but there are many days when I just don't want to be doing it because it's hard! And frustrating! Any mother knows this. The frustration comes from your kids not behaving the way you want them to, or not being the way you want them to be. And my most fundamental job as their mother is to simply teach them how to be. But it is so frustrating when they just don't cooperate with that.

As I thought about this recently, I remembered something. In college part of my major was human development. How kids turn into, well, mature humans -- the process of growing up and making choices and becoming the way they need to be to have success in this life and the life to come. And of course I know how they need to be, and how I need to be, but the part I was overlooking was development. What I need to be doing is guiding them through a process - a very long process that they will continue throughout their whole lives. They don't need to be perfect to still be progressing along the path of self-improvement that we all need to follow. They don't need to cooperate all the time or be nice to each other all the time or be good listeners all the time. Eventually yes, we all need to reach perfection, but we will not get to that point until well after this life. Because even as adults, we are still going through that developmental process -- having experiences and making choices and learning from them, trying to get closer to the way we need to be.

My job, then, as a mother, is not to make sure my kids are perfect right now. It is simply to get them started on the path, so that once they grow up they can continue the process on their own -- a process of trial and error, self-reflection, repentance, and continued determination to keep trying. It is so easy to tell your kids, "Stop doing this or that", or "Why can't you just listen and obey?" The answer is the same for all of us -- because as children of God we are all  still developing and won't reach our potential for being completely Christlike as long as we are on this earth! This perspective makes it so much easier to praise them for the good they do and the potential that they have, recognizing that although they are not doing it all right now, they are developing in the right direction. And the encouragement that I give them as they begin their journey to perfection and salvation is what will give them faith in the hope we receive through the Atonement. They will understand that making mistakes is okay and even expected of us, but we always try again and again and again to do and be better.

I'm very grateful for the example of my mother who has always worked so hard and been so patient and selfless. I can't even imagine the day that I would be able and willing to do what I have seen her do throughout my life. I'm so thankful for the challenges and blessings of mothering my children, and for Seth, without whom I would not be able to do even half of what I do now. He is truly the greatest support and help-meet there could be. I love you!

What I forgot to remember...

I was looking back through the blog from the last year and ran across the stories about Seth in his sleep and remembered that I forgot to post the latest one up here! This was at least a month ago, but it was so funny. I hope I can remember it all.

I was actually sound asleep this time when I all of a sudden opened my eyes to find Seth propped up on his elbow staring down at me. Naturally I assumed he was awake and most likely after something interesting, but I just said "Can I help you?" He responded by saying dramatically, in his best British accent (weirdo!), "I'm going to take this out of your noggin" (grabbing the top of my head with his open hand) "and put it HERE!" (removing his hand from my head and karate-chopping it against my neck!!!) Then he slowly laid back down, chuckling, and muttering (still British as could be) "I cut off your neck!" Hilarious...although at the time I was slightly irritated at being woken up from a deep sleep just to have a weird phony-British guy chop off my head!

Family History meets Tudor England AMENDED

Lately I have been devouring historical novels about Tudor England. They are absolutely fascinating. (The Sixth Wife, The Lady Elizabeth, and Innocent Traitor: a novel of the Lady Jane Grey are the titles in case you are wondering.) As much as I love history and learning about people, I've never been one for retaining information, so although I've heard the names before, the stories are completely new to me. (That probably explains why I can read the same book 50 times and always be surprised by the ending.)

Anyway, as I've been reading I've been wondering where my family fit into this scene, since I know I am almost completely English as far back as you can go. So I decided to get on familysearch.org, which I have never done before, and look around through my family tree to see what I could find. After a few dead ends I was thrilled to come upon several lines going back to the 14th century, and found a line that goes back through Sir Thomas More (or Saint Thomas More, to the Catholic church). Amazing! I have read the name several times in connection with Queen Katherine Parr and Elizabeth 1st and I can't describe what an amazing feeling it was to come across this and discover where I fit into all this. That's who I was in Tudor England! Is that a weird way to say that? I'm not talking reincarnation or anything, but I can't think of how else to describe how I feel about my ancestors. I don't think that saying they are "where/who I come from" adequately describes it. I don't feel like they are just a part of me, but I am all of them put together. So, I discovered that I was Thomas More! and I'm him plus a whole lot of other people put together.

I remember at some point seeing William the Conqueror in my genealogy, but I have yet to rediscover where he is. Somewhere in there are also Captain Miles Standish, John Alden, and Priscilla Mullins of Mayflower fame. (***Mom, if you read this, all I want for Christmas is copies of whatever family trees you happen to have! And BTW I saw a cool book full of genealogy lines down in the storeroom when we were there at Christmas, I forgot to mention it, but it was old and really, really cool.)

Note to self or relatives: Ivie Romney, through her mother Annie Maria's Woodbury line to Mary Ward, then thru Mary's mother Sibbella Moore's line back through Thomas More, to help me find it again.

In addition to Thomas More, it was neat to see a couple of other knights, a Captain William Knowlton, and John de Burgh, Welsh Lord of Mawddwy, who from what I can gather, was the last in the royal line of William de la Pole (he was born in 1414).

As a coincidence, although I come from his son John, Thomas also had a daughter named Cecily, which name I just happen to love...kind of neat that it turns out to be sort of a family name, uncommon as it is. I guess good taste sometimes skips 40 generations (give or take a few). ;)

***So I'm looking around through the family trees more, and it appears that the line going back through Thomas More may be through adoption. Jacob Moore is listed as having two fathers, John Moore and Joseph Morse, and his mother is Elizabeth Whale. According to the dates, Elizabeth was married to Joseph Morse at the time of Jacob's birth (1645) -- the date of marriage to John Moore isn't until 1673. But because of the last name...I would assume that either the dates are mixed up or Jacob was adopted by his new father? Although it seems odd to be adopted at 28 years old, unless it was for inheritance purposes maybe. It's a mystery...

***On inbreeding: I accidentally figured out that Sibella Moore and her husband Isaac Ward are actually second cousins. Their grandparents were siblings (The above mentioned Jacob Moore being Sibella's grandfather, and his sister Mary Moore being Isaac's grandmother...interesting!) 

Our Money Makeover

Recently, Rebecca and I read The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and it made us take stock of our family's financial situation. I graduated from BYU about 4 1/2 years ago and have been employed ever since, but we felt that monetarily speaking, we had nothing to show for it.

Neither of us are big spenders and we don't have a lot of debt aside from student loans, but our savings is pretty dismal. We were meticulous budgeters when we got married (since we both had nothing when we started) and basically maintained our thorough budgeting habits up till now. However, even with our larger income, we felt like we could never get ahead. We had only 2 financial rules that we lived by: one, pay a full tithe and two, don't accrue consumer debt. Good rules, but we had no real goals beyond them. Ramsey's book outlines sound, basic money goals that helped us see what we could have and how we could live, if we were willing to work for it.

Here are the steps we are following:

1) Set up a $1,000 emergency fund

2) Pay off all debts from smallest to biggest

3) Add to the emergency fund until we have enough to cover 6 months worth of expenses

4) Put 15% of our gross income into retirement savings/investment

5) Build the children's college savings

6) Pay off our home mortgage early

7) Build wealth and give

We were able to finish step one quickly by pooling together money from various savings accounts. For step 2, we want to pay off all our debts within the next few months. To do this we've had to cut up our credit cards and cut out of our budget most of our entertainment money, vacation savings, art classes, swimming lessons, amusement parks, etc. We've explained to the kids that we're still going to have fun, but that we'll have to be creative about it. Also, we apologize now to extended family that we won't be able to do much traveling beyond the trips we have planned this year. (You're always welcome to visit us though!)

We expect to maintain this spartan regime until we've established our full emergency fund (step 3). Steps 4 and 5 will still probably squeeze our income a bit, but we should be able to bring back some of the "fun" stuff (paid in full with cash of course). As for step 6, we don't even own a house yet, so the mortgage isn't an issue for now. To be honest, we're not sure it's even worth it to buy a house in our area (based on rent vs. mortgage payment ratios). Step 7 assumes every need is met and we can focus on building wealth for pleasure and to give it away charitably (beyond tithes and offerings).

That's our plan in a nutshell. We're very optimistic about it because we both have agreed to it and we've already made a lot of progress toward our goals in this first month. I'll try to provide periodic updates of our progress as we go along and if any of you reading this have done the Total Money Makeover, please let us know how yours went (and please share any helpful hints).

Welcome Home, John...

Hannah's piggy fantasy is getting a little out of hand. She has written several books about her three babies and her piggy family, and she and Joshua have now made paper cutouts of the pigs (pictures to come), which even came to church with us today tucked inside a doll carrier. (They were only allowed because I figured the kids would be more reverent if they had their babies there. I was right.)

Early yesterday morning she came to tell me that her husband (the piggies' father) was "home from the military." She talked my ear off about her husband, John Shadrach, and how her name was now Hannah Rae Shadrach, and her baby piggies' full names are Rose Butterfly Shadrach, Tulip Pearl Shadrach, and Daffodil Rae Shadrach. I don't remember what else she said because it was a lot of information to process at 6:30 in the morning, but it was pretty impressive to see her little mind working as she made this up right on the spot.

If I remember I will offer to take their portraits tomorrow so we can get some pictures up here. They are pretty cute piggies, even if I am a biased grandma. :)

Hannah and Parent-Teacher Conferences

Hannah's toothless grin -- she's missing 3 teeth. I think she looks super cute with that huge hole in her mouth.

I don't know what is going on with my computer but I can't seem to type without underlining. No idea how to fix that of course so oh well.

Hannah is getting to be such a big girl. I can't believe she will be 7 next month! She's only ten inches shorter than I am, and although I'm not what you would consider tall...or even average...I kind of always figured she'd be my "little" girl for longer than this! :( But I can't complain too much because she is turning out to be such a great kid. She is so creative and hilarious. Her "thing" lately has been an obsession with her 3 invisible Angry Birds piggies. (She's the only kid I know that likes the pigs better than the birds, but then, she's always rooted for the predator. She used to watch shows about animals and when the wolves are chasing the deer, she cheers for the wolves. She's also been known to describe Winnie-the-Pooh's friend Piglet as "delicious". If nothing else, she has a bright future as a butcher.)

Anyway, she has these three baby pigs, gender neutral but named Rose, Tulip and Daffodil. She takes them everywhere. When she walks to school she holds her hands out in front of her like she's pushing a baby carriage. After school she tells me all about what her piggies did during the day, and she spends the rest of the day bathing, feeding, and changing them, wherever we are. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now probably, making it officially the longest-running "imaginary friend" we've ever had at our house. (The only other one was a boy named Fabric that Hannah had as a friend for a week or so when she was 3.)

(As a side note: I just went upstairs to check on them and Hannah showed me the new "curtain" she hung up around her bed because she is apparently giving birth right now.? She's very imaginative!)

I had a conference with her Mandarin teacher today (who teaches all of Hannah's subjects except English). I love parent-teacher conferences. :) Ms. Wass loves Hannah to death and thinks she is perfect. That's pretty much the only thing I've ever heard from Hannah's teachers. She also said that academically, Hannah is the "advanced of the advanced" and scores 100% on almost everything, including her state benchmark tests. In Mandarin, they were recently tested on instantly recalling 87 characters from throughout the year, and without any review Hannah was able to identify 80 of them. Go Hannah!

Tomorrow we meet with her English teacher, and I'm sure that will be fun too. I talked with her in passing last week and discovered that they have been writing pieces about a hero of theirs and Hannah chose Mommy. :)

Hannah is so sweet and lovey, and always tells me I'm perfect and that she always wants to be with me. (How much longer can I expect that to last? I have a feeling I'd better enjoy it while I can.)

Eli, aka "Lowly"

I meant to update around 1 year, but now is just as good. Eli will be 19 months soon, and he's definitely more exciting now than he was then. :) He definitely likes to do things his own way and on his own timetable. For example, he finally tried clapping his hands at around 13 months old, and even learned how to wave at about 17 months. What an overachiever! :) Hannah and Joshua both spoke in sentences by this time in their lives so this has been a different experience for us. Eli's speech finally started to pick up over Christmas vacation. That's not to say that he was quiet before that; he definitely likes making noise, and spends a lot of time just yelling for the fun of it. The first "conversation" I ever had with him, a month or so ago, was so cute and totally unexpected. It was:

(me) -Say "mommy"!

(Eli)- Why?

(me) - uh...because I said so?

(Eli) - Okay (more like "ogay")

(me) - ...say "mommy"!

(Eli) - Mommy!

One of his favorite activities is running the full length of our house, from front door to back, just yelling. He likes it even better if he thinks you're trying to "get" him and he will get grabbed and tickled.

Eli is super cute little guy, full of personality and life and mischief. He LOVES having his picture taken and will bring the camera, smile until it flashes, and then ask to see "Lowly" (how he usually pronounces his name -- it varies between Lowly, Lola, and Low-lie). He has become such a snuggly and affectionate little boy, loving to give hugs and kisses, especially to Joshua. It is so fun to see these adorable brothers together. Joshua loves and admires Eli and his antics, and Eli loves to see Joshie and Hannah enjoying and laughing at him. One of his favorite things to do is make faces while we're sitting at the table. His favorites are a big grin with his eyes shut super tight, or doing this seizure-like shaking with his arms outstretched, eyes open super-wide and his mouth stretched wide. He is such a clown.

Eli's favorite things are taking baths, Elmo, being outside, Elmo, being outside, Elmo, and being outside. Once he gets outside, he will take off and RUN. We sometimes call him Trotsky because a steady trot seems to be his only speed. He even walks all the way to school to pick up Hannah. (I didn't have Joshua do that til he was 3, and even then I felt guilty!) He is much more trouble than the others were at this age too. If we have the baby gate down and he gets into the kitchen, he automatically goes straight to the thing that has the most potential for disaster -- straight to the cupboard to drop a glass lid on the floor (yes, it shattered. Into dust.), in the other cupboard to spray hydrogen peroxide everywhere, or reaching up on the counter to pull down a new bottle of maple syrup. If there's a bathtub full of water, all the books go in; and sometimes a rubber duck gets a bath in the toilet.

My favorite thing about Eli is his dancing and singing. Even though he couldn't talk, he started singing months ago, and somehow you could actually identify which songs he sang. He of course sings Elmo's Song, and a couple of others from those videos, and a couple of Frankie Valli songs. He's a pretty good and enthusiastic little singer. I need to get it on videotape. He also gets REALLY excited about dancing, and is always tapping/stomping rhythmically on the floor, twirling around, or bouncing, especially when he hears music or sees someone dancing on a movie (usually an Elmo movie). I all of a sudden broke into a frantic tap dance for him today and his face LIT UP like a Christmas tree. He was SO excited by it! It was so funny! Seth said later that he thought Eli was going to explode into stars and happy faces.

Eli is definitely a bundle of joy when he's not whining (which is still his preferred method of communication) or eating so much he throws up. (He must have some kind of eating disorder, because he really does not seem able to identify when he's had enough to eat. We have to stop him at every meal. For awhile he was regularly throwing up after eating. For breakfast today, we stopped him after a banana, 3 clementine oranges, and four pancakes with berries and whipped cream. Of course that didn't stop him from begging for the food on our plates.) Love love LOVE that cute little overeater!

Santa's helper...

I give up on trying to update with photos every time. My goal this year is to write on the blog more often just because it's the only kind of journaling I really do and I want to remember the events and moments of family life...amusing and otherwise...

Hannah has such a funny imagination. It comes so effortlessly for her. She is constantly drawing and writing books and all of her pictures and stories have these hilarious little touches in them that make them so unique. When she draws a picture of her family, it's not just people standing there; it's Mommy walking holding Eli, Hannah and Joshie following her with their arms extended straight out in front of them like mummies, and Daddy walking after them looking confused and with a question mark over his head. When she explains the picture, she says Daddy looks like that because he's wondering why H&J are holding their arms out like that. So random! And Eli is looking out from the picture saying "goo" and Mommy is saying "silly baby!"

Anyway, Hannah's latest creative piece from school was pretty funny. In English class, they were given cutouts of Santa's legs sticking out of a chimney, and they were supposed to write what they would do if Santa was stuck in the chimney. (As a side note, I saw several of these hung up in the hallway at school, and they all said they would get Santa a ladder or tell his reindeer to help him out.) Hannah's said: "If Santa was stuck in my chimney I would jump on his bottom!"