"Sorry Mom"........and other Lauren stuff

Lauren will be 2 at the end of next month. She's a spunky little girl with a blossoming personality. Here are a few cute things she's been doing and saying lately that I don't ever want to forget.

The latest thing Lauren has started doing is apologizing for things. Usually she apologizes anytime she thinks she's made a mistake or done something wrong. This could be as simple as loosing her footing when she climbs up into her chair and then falls down. She'll say in this soft and serious voice, "sorry mom." Or if she makes a mess, shuts a cupboard door too hard or splashes water on the bathroom mirror when brushing her hair. It is so funny it makes me smile every time.

Another thing she started doing about six months ago was giving me little random hugs. The first time she did this I was in the kitchen doing dishes and she came up behind me and just "hugged" my legs with this tight little squeeze. Since then she does this on a pretty regular basis. I also love it when I'm sitting on the floor or ground and she'll come up from behind me and put both arms around my neck and give me a little hug. I can just feel her little love.


Here's a picture Aaron took a couple months ago when I was out in the yard cutting up strawberries......she just came up from behind me and gave me her sweet little Lauren hug. This is something that the boys never did and I love it so much!

Other things that I've noticed about Lauren lately is that she is developing a very assertive personality. Her brothers absolutely adore her and treat her very well but she is growing to be quite a little spit fire when she doesn't like something they're doing and boy does she let them know it! Usually these eruptions in assertion happen when they are smothering her with their brotherly affection (giving hugs, snuggling, kissing her, etc.-they seriously love her) but sometimes she just wants to be left alone and boy will she let them know it! Her scream is the most high pitched squeal we have ever experienced, far exceeding any decibels that the boys ever reached -even in their worst tantrums. The offender will immediately surrender by letting go to cover their ears and get the heck out of there.

Love you Lauren.

Push Ups for Punishment

I've been meaning to blog about this for weeks now but this summer has been so busy I haven't been posting much......

Anyway, last month we drove up to the temple with a couple from our ward who also has sons. During the drive we were visiting and it came up that they make their boys (who are teenagers) do push-ups for punishment anytime they do something wrong. They said that they started this when their boys were about Jacob's age because it helped them get conditioned for wrestling. Aaron and I both looked at each other and instantly knew that this was something we wanted to do. As they shared with us their experiences with it I kept thinking what a great idea it was.

So the next day we explained our new punishment policy to the boys and they were actually thrilled. No more time outs or swats on the toosh I feel so liberated! Now when they act up, disobey, hit each other or are unkind they have to do the number of push ups that is appropriate for the offense. I can't tell you how wonderful this is for me as a mother! Now I don't get nearly as emotional when punishing the kids because it's a punishment that I am able to completely detach myself from. I simply and calmly tell them how many push ups they just earned. This morning Jacob had to do 20 push ups because he was harassing his brother to the point that Joseph was crying in frustration with the situation. So he did them (this picture was taken today) and then as usual he had to apologize to his brother and give him a hug.

Also, the rules for this punishment are that you have to do it wherever we are and if you protest or whine you get 5 more push ups added onto your punishment for each whine or comment. I was at Walmart the other day and one of the boys had to do push ups right in the parking lot outside the car. I've also made them drop while in the grocery store right in the middle of the aisle. (The added humiliation of doing it in public makes the punishment even worse). Ben had to do them in the pew during sacrament meeting a couple weeks ago because he was throwing a fit about something ridiculous.

A fun side note that I wanted to remember is that Benjamin ( who just turned 4) has the best form of all the boys. Initially Aaron and I were worried that he might not be able to do a push up because he's so young, but we were certainly wrong. He is such a muscly little boy, so solid and tough. Sometimes they are all down at the same time doing push ups and Ben will finish first because he does all of his so perfectly while his brothers sometime have to do repeats for "poor form."


This is the best thing ever! And on top of everything else they're getting so buff (if that's even possible for this age) (:

Blue Angels and Boyhood Dreams

My boys have never been much into action figures or superheroes but one thing they do love is the Blue Angels. Every year in August (on SeaFair weekend) we take the kids to watch the Blue Angels. It has become a family tradition that even I get excited about.

This year we weren't sure we were going to make it because Aaron had jaw surgery on Monday and was pretty swollen and sore all week. Even by Friday he wasn't sure if he was going to be up for it the next day so I intentionally didn't mention ANYTHING about the Blue Angels in case we weren't able to go on Saturday. During the week the boys were playing outside and heard jet sounds overhead ( I think it was the blue angels practicing over Seattle) and they got so excited. Then there was a DJ on the radio talking about them and I had to switch the channel really quickly before they heard. And then Friday night I was reading a story to Ben and pointing out a picture of a little boy who later in the book grew up into a man to which he immediately informed me: "Mommy when I grow up I'm going to be a Blue Angels pilot!" Oh man, I totally wanted to tell him we were going to see them the next day! But I still wasn't sure if we'd be able to and didn't want to get his hopes up.

Anyway, we did end up going to see them on Saturday. As always Ben needed ear plugs (because he is super sensitive to the loud sounds that they make) . The boys kept leaping to their feet and yelling in excitement every time they'd do an unexpected flyby over our heads or some cool formation.

Jacob's favorite was when two Blue Angels played chicken and at the last minute pulled out and barely missed eachother......

Jacob: "Did you see that Mom!"

Every time we go to see the Blue Angels at least one of my boys recommits to wanting to be a blue angels pilot. It always makes me reflect upon what they will grow up to be one day. When I was a sophomore in High School I actually wanted to be an F-16 pilot but when I went to the Air Force recruiter I was told I had to be an officer first which meant 4 years of college and acceptance into flight school which you couldn't do unless you had 20 x 20 vision. (Not to mention my concern for how this would disrupt my desire to be a mother). So with that dream dashed I changed my plans and settled for enlisting in Air Force where I served for 5 years before getting married and starting a family.

One of the things that I love about raising sons is seeing what their natural interests and ambitions are. I love that if encouraged and guided those dreams and passions can one day be turned into lifelong careers. My greatest hope for my sons, (no matter what profession they choose), would be that they find a job they love to do and that they feel passionate about their work. That is one thing that I love and respect about Aaron so much is that he is so good at what he does professionally. I can tell that he loves it and really gets excited about the projects he's working on. He enjoys the energy of working in a high stress environment and I can tell he really thrives on the challenge of figuring things out and making things work. I also like that he wants to be an expert at what he does. It's that type of drive and ambition that leads to success and I hope so much that my boys will follow in their father's footsteps and do something they love and that they're good at. Whether it be a blue angels pilot or a computer geek (like their Dad) I hope they'll be doing something that they love. A favorite quote I have (one that I want to paint around my boys bedroom) is:

"You never know what a boy is worth,
You’ll have to wait and see;
For every man in a noble place,
A boy once used to be."

Surprise!!

I just wanted to record something cute that the kids have been doing lately.....

When I have to go somewhere during the day I'll usually tell the kids to get their shoes on and head out to the car about 5 minutes before I know we need to leave. Lauren can now put her shoes on and lately she has been following her brothers out the door too. She can even climb up into the suburban all by herself and will put herself in her car seat. So by the time I finish up in the house, grab my stuff and head out the door they've already been out in the car for a few minutes, (depending on how obedient they are that day). Sometimes I'll find JoJo making "clay balls" in the dirt or Lauren playing with the kitty on the porch.

Lately the kids have been being so good and the past few times I've gone out to the car and opened the side door (to buckle in Lauren) they will all yell at the same time with happy little faces, "Surprise!!!."

Their surprise is that they are all in their seats, and everyone is buckled......even Lauren. It makes me so happy when they do this and I feel so proud of them when they know we're running late and they do their best to help mommy get out the door faster and get to where we're going without having to buckle up car seat belts and run down little ones who should already be in the car.

Thank you boys, you are so sweet and wonderful.

Berry Picking & A Walk down Memory Lane

Things have been really busy and I'm so behind with everything that's been going on. I'm hoping that after I finish this post I'll be able to spend some time catching up on everyone else's blogs since I haven't been online for weeks.

Anyway, I 'm going to skip everything else that's been going on this summer and just post an entry about my trip up to Skagit Valley. Aaron was in Vegas that week for work so I took the opportunity to leave for a few days with the kids and drive up to the Skagit Valley. I went up there to pick strawberries so that I could make a bunch of jam (something I've been meaning to do each summer since I moved back to Washington). The kids loved it and Jacob was a good berry picker! They each had a bucket and he filled his as fast as I filled mine! Joseph, as you can see from the picture, may have been as fast as Jacob but the berries seemed to be emptying into his mouth instead of the bucket. It was fun picking strawberries again and they tasted just as good as I remembered them. You just can't compare California berries at Safeway to sun-ripened Skagit Valley strawberries. Yummy!



In addition to a berry picking trip, this was also a trip down memory lane for me. My family moved to the Skagit Valley and bought a 22 acre farm in Sedro-Woolley when I was in the first grade. We lived there until I was a freshman in High school, so most of my childhood memories are from this area. Our neighbors, Greg and Jonee Platt, lived across the field from us at the end of Sterling Road. Their daughter Sally (who was a year older than me) was my best friend for many years. Sally now lives in New York but her parents still live in the same house across the field from my old home. I called Jonee up a few weeks ago and asked if we could come over for a visit since we would be up in the area getting strawberries anyway. She said yes, so we took the 8am ferry out of Kingston on a Tuesday morning and were at her house by 10am. The kids spent the whole day riding their bikes in the same places that I did as a child. It was surreal coming back and being there again with my own children. Here's a picture of them riding their bikes from the Platts house down the road to the house where I used to live.



It was so nice of them to let us stay the day at their place. I really enjoyed visiting with Greg and Jonee, they are seriously the nicest people you could ever meet. I just loved being in their home and seeing so many familiar things from my past. I love when you can go back to a place that you were many years before and have the comfort of it feeling like it did when you last left. So many times I've gone back to places from my past only to see that it has changed so much I don't even recognize if from my memories. The Platts have done such a great job of preserving their home and the many things that make it so cozy, comfortable and charming. It was so great to sit at their same kitchen table I played games on as a kid and have my boys spend the night in the same bedroom that Sally and I used to hang out and play in as young girls. They haven't changed much either, they just look a little older but every bit as wonderful. While we were there visiting in the backyard their neighbor Cathy came over to say hi too. Her son (who was just an infant when I last rememberd seeing him) was now 16 or 17 and had to be over 6 foot tall. It's crazy how quickly time passes.


They were so great with the kids too. From the moment we arrived, Greg was pulling bikes and scooters out from his basement and any other fun toys that he thought the boys would enjoy. They kept them entertained for hours with baseball, bikes, marbles and tops and even an inflatable raft that they filled up with water. The boys had so much fun and even asked me on the drive home when we could go back to visit Greg and Jonee again.


While we were there we even got to see my old house. Apparently it's been on the market for a couple years and so I called up the Realtor and he walked us through it. It felt odd going back to my old bedroom and walking through the house that I grew up in.

It's changed in many ways from the way I remembered it. When we were living there it only had one tiny bathroom and was pretty small but since then it has been renovated and raised (because it's in a flood zone) and an addition was put on the front of the house. Anyway I thought I'd post some pictures here for my family to see the old place and remember some of the things from when we were kids. The battery on my camera died while I was taking pictures of the place but at least I got some pictures of some of the things I wanted to remember. I don't expect that anyone will find these pictures or memories interesting but I want to record them here since right now they're only locked away in my mind.......

The picture above shows the chicken shed and tool shed (now painted in red) and the great oak tree that was planted by the son of the original owner of the home over 100 years ago. We were told that the little boy found the acorn on his way home from school and his mother helped him plant it. It moved around to a couple places in the yard but finally made it's permanent home here behind the house. If you click on the picture and look closely you can see how big it is from Lauren standing near it. You can also see some of the remains of Dad's rose garden.



These are some interior pictures of the house.

Jonee came with me when the Realtor was there. I took the picture of the kids from the top of the stairs looking down because I remember how one year all 5 of us kids sat on those steps on Christmas morning watching and waiting for the cuckoo-clock to strike 6am which was the appointed time when we were allowed to come downstairs to wake up our parents to open presents. The clock was hung at the bottom of the stairs high up on the red wall. I remember that little closet that was under the stairs being the place where I would usually find my older sister Cathleen talking on the phone with her boyfriend. And at the top of the stairs in that little alcove next to the window I remember my mom had her desk and that's where I would find her paying bills and balancing the checkbook on one of those old adding machines.




This is a picture of my bedroom window where I spent many a moment looking out and dreaming of my future. I dreamed about the man I would marry and about having my own baby (which would look just like my doll named Thumbelina) and I would take care of her and she would love me. I remember many times wanting to run away from home because I felt that no one loved me or cared about me. One time I remember looking out this window on a drizzly day and trying to decide when the best day would be to run away.....(I was probably only 9 or 10.) I think I didn't want to miss the sacrament presentation that Sunday and then it was almost Thanksgiving and I thought I would wait a few more weeks. Luckily in a few weeks I had Christmas to look forward to.





These are some pictures of the boys in my old bedroom. The closet was where we used to hide and jump out and scare people at night when they were in bed. ( I shared a room with my sister Megan). I remember one time my brother was hiding in the closet while I was telling my sister about what I had just bought him for Christmas (an F-16 model jet). He suddenly burst out of the closet and my surprise of the perfect gift (that I was so excited for him to open) was totally blown. I was so mad at him!!!



Here are some pictures of my brothers old tree house. As you can see it has since fallen to the ground, but my boys still had a ton of fun exploring. There's also a picture of the swing (which was broken) and the balance beam that I used to do gymnastics on. I loved gymnastics but having lessons was to expensive so my Dad told me that if I saved up $50 he could buy the lumber and make regulation balance beam. I was only in the 6th grade but I won $25 in an editorial writing contest at our school and babysat and mowed lawns to earn the rest of the money. It was old and moss-covered but still standing.

This is a picture of the giant evergreen tree that was in our back yard. This tree was so cool! The branches were like a sweeping skirt and when you went up under the tree there was the coolest places to play. We would pretend it was our house and I made many mud cakes and mud pies that were cooked in the "oven" (a hollowed out fallen tree that we stuck a grill in to rest the cakes on). We used the log rounds that my Dad had leftover from chainsawing up the trees he would get for winter firewood as the plates that we would make the cakes on. We would decorate them with wildflowers an they (in my memory) looked so pretty. The ivy has grown like crazy around the base of the tree now. The pictures of the kids are taken inside the underskirt of the tree. There were 3 other trees like this out in the back fields that we also used to play in. They were so much fun, I wish we had a tree like that for our kids to play in.




Okay, so I saved the best for last. This is a picture of the playhouse.


It was actually an old milk shed that the farmers used to take the cows in for milking but when we moved there I thought it was built for me. I spent many, many hours playing in this little shed that became lovingly known as "the playhouse". The blackberry bushes had started growing up around it and blocked the door a little bit but that didn't stop us. Inside was pretty dusty and dirty but there were still many things where I had left them over 20 years before....

I made the little brick "fireplace" from the leftover bricks that my Dad threw out when he knocked down the old chimney on the house. It was so weird to see it still there. The cement thing on the top right was our "couch." I stuffed burlap sacks that I found in the big barn with hay to make a cushion for the seat. The milk crates on the wall were hammered up for "shelves" to hold our old dishes and other treasures. I bought curtains for the windows and pictures for the walls at garage sales and had the whole place looking quite homey. I had a little garden on the left side of the house that I pretended was for vegetables but I really just grabbed interesting plants and weeds that would pop up on the farm and transplant them to grow there. I loved that play house and had so much fun spending my time there. It was like my little house, my own place that felt like my home. I think it was there that my love for making a home first began. The kids had fun going in the playhouse and hearing about all the things we used to play there but Lauren didn't like being left in it while I snuck out to take their picture. She was quite unsure of this place......But it all brought back many happy memories for me.

Coolest Rope Swing Ever !!!

Aaron had been talking about making a rope swing for the boys when we first started exploring the property. He even brought me out to the spot one day and tried to describe to me his "vision" but I wasn't really seeing it. Well, a few weeks ago he found a good price for some rope on craigslist and went that day to pick it up in Tacoma. When he got home the boys were all set to help Dad.......

A little later I went outside to steady the extension ladder as he cut branches off the tree and hung the rope. After that though, I didn't see anything until he called me outside that evening to see the final result.

In one day this guy cut branches with his chainsaw 20 feet up in the air, hung a rope, made a swing, built a platform and changed my boys lives forever! When he finally called me out to come and see I had to admit that I was totally impressed! I kept thinking what a cool guy he is to make and build such cool things for our kids. Just one of the reasons I love him so much. So here's some pictures of the coolest rope swing ever! (at least that I've ever seen) (:

The take off ......

Jacob and Joseph are the only ones who are daring enough to stand on the platform. Ben stands down further on the dirt slope.

The release.......

This picture is a little blurry but the expression on Josephs face is priceless!
(Definitely worth clicking on)




The flight path......

The property naturally slopes down here to a little gully with a stream at the bottom. A perfect slope for a rope swing. As you can see Joseph is "waving" at us.......we had to set some rules and one of them was both hands on the rope AT ALL TIMES or you're done for the rest of the day.



The boys are pretty strong and can hold their body weight just by hanging on with their arms. I, however, was not as confident in my arm muscles. I could just see myself falling off the kid-size seat and dangling in the air like Tar-Zan. Would I be able to hold up so much weight or would I drop like a bowling ball at the highest point and come crashing down into the bushes? I was actually a bit terrified to go off of the platform..... and it took me a while to get up the nerve ( all with my boys standing behind me rooting me on) but when I finally did I have to admit that it was quite a rush and SO MUCH FUN!!! I screamed like a crazy lady the whole way down. Jacob won't let me forget it either. Every time since then that I take a ride he tells me, "now don't scream mom, okay?"


Next time any of you come over for a visit you have to try it out! It's already provided hours of entertainment for the boys and their friends. A worthwhile investment of time......
thanks Aaron. (:

"A Piece of Quiet"

I just wanted to write down something cute that Joseph said the other day.....

We were driving in the car and Lauren was having a meltdown. In addition to her screaming the other kids were making their typical noise. Between Lauren's screams Joseph was trying to tell me something but he couldn't get it out because he kept getting interrupted by all the noise. Finally in desperation he yelled out......"Can I please have a piece of quiet!!!"

It made me laugh because I thought about how often I ask for "peace and quiet" when things start getting too loud and crazy with the kids. I guess Joseph hears it as me wanting "a piece of quiet" though. His interpretation made me smile.