Chandelier and Avatar

Weekends have been so nice this year. Saturday morning breakfast has turned into a traditional one of homemade waffles with homemade jam. The rest of the day was really busy. We had the normal Saturday activities – laundry, cleaning the house, and grocery shopping – and then others. Steph found a piece of furniture we can use as a shoe cubby from Big Lots that we got set up. We went to Home Depot to find some wood and hooks to hang up above the shoe cubby. The boys like going there on Saturdays because they always have free popcorn. We also found a hanging light fixture that we really like for the dining room. I would call it a chandelier, but Steph says that sounds too fancy. :) It is black with 5 lights that curve back up and are inside white glass containers. We’ll post some pictures soon. This was our first electrical job and it turned out great, and no one was electrocuted. The one we had before is gold and light brown and just doesn’t fit with the changes we made to that room.

This year is the 100th anniversary of Scouting, and as part of that, there was an event at the mall that we took the boys to. Several troops had tables with different events or activities set up, like building straw rockets, making ice cream, and an obstacle course. The boys loved participating. It will be so much fun once Kolby starts Cub Scouts.

I was able to get our taxes done earlier this week. Our children still continue to be a blessing in so many ways, including with taxes. They give us so many deductions that our taxable income ends of being quite small. As a result, we ended up with a nice return coming this year. Maybe now we can work on redoing the bathroom and finish the basement – we’ll keep you posted. We plan to work on the bathroom when I have a week off work in May.

Steph and I both had youth activities to help out with on Wednesday night, so we had to take all the boys with us. One of the ladies from church offered to watch them for us over there, which was really nice. Stephanie works with the 10-11 year old girls, and they had an introductory activity for them with the 12-18 year old girls. I am now working with the 12-18 year old young men, helping with activities on the first Wednesday each month, to help the boys earn an award from our church called the Duty to God award. They have to perform several activities over the entire 6 years, from categories like spiritual, physical, personal, and family development, as well as doing service projects and keeping a journal of their progress.

Thursday night I had Roundtable for scouts. There was a child psychologist who came and spoke about how to deal with the “helicopter parent,” or the parent who is always hovering over their boy and won’t allow to participate in the activities. He explained an A-O-C model, or actor-observer-critiquer. A person takes these roles to learn and become self-reliant. Then there are other people that are constantly observing and critiquing – parents, leaders, friends, etc. – so if they are not working together they can pull the person in lots of directions, causing lots of confusion. But if they are working together, then they help the person to grow. It was quite an interesting concept.

Friday night Steph and I got a babysitter and went to see Avatar in 3-D. The story was one we have seen before – I think it was best when Steph said it was a mix of Fern Gully, Dances with Wolves, and Pocohontas. But the colors and animation/special effects were breathtaking. I was totally pulled into that magical world and loved the experience.

A Testimony

Next month we are having a celebration for the anniversary of the women’s organization in our church. For that night they are putting together a little book with a picture of each woman in the organization and a contribution from each of us – a short story, poetry, testimony, etc. Last week I was trying to think of what I would write, and I couldn’t really come up with anything that I was satisfied with. Then the other day I was talking to someone from church and I told her about how one of our old cars was totaled a few years ago, which was actually a blessing in disguise because the car was having major electrical problems and we needed to have a more dependable car, but couldn’t afford to replace it. She said that would be a good story to contribute for the little book at church. So, I sat down to write about that and several other events in our lives that have been meaningful to me. This is what I ended up with, and I thought I’d share it here:

One thing that I have started to learn is that Heavenly Father plays a role in each of our lives, even when things are happening that we don’t understand the reason for, or things that are difficult for us. Although I personally like to feel like I am in control of my life, I have to be reminded sometimes that not everything is up to me, and I have to have faith and trust in God that things happen for a reason. Although we’ve had many family experiences in the last few years since we were married that we didn’t really understand the reason for at the time, and others that seemed like they were very difficult to go through at the time. But I’ve begun to realize that most of these things happen for a reason, especially through hindsight, and this realization has helped me to have faith when things come along that are difficult that there is a reason for them to happen in our lives, and that things will turn out alright if we endure as best we can.

For example, when my husband started applying to medical schools all over the country, he applied to a range of schools – including some that may have been difficult for him to get into, and others that should have been relatively easy to be accepted to. Since he had good grades, we were both a little surprised when he was only accepted to one of the schools – a school in Wisconsin (which we hadn’t really seriously considered when applying, only because we knew very little about any of the Midwestern states). So we ended up in Milwaukee for four years of medical school, and not only were we pleased with the quality of education my husband received and the many friendships we made while living there, but in our last year in Milwaukee our fourth son ended up having surgery the day after he was born and then staying in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for 18 days. Looking back now, I believe that one of the biggest reasons for us to move to Milwaukee is that we happened to live minutes from the best pediatric hospital in the whole region.

There have been many other such experiences since then that have also helped me to see the Lord’s hand in our lives, even when we may not have understood the purpose of our struggles at the time. For instance, one thing that I gained from that long, very emotional stay with our baby in the NICU was the realization that even though it was probably the most difficult trial of my life as yet, I did not question my faith in God – although it was incredibly difficult for me to get through those long days at the hospital, it was also very comforting for me to realize that my faith could get me through it.

At another time we had a car that was having serious problems – the battery would die after only leaving the car doors open long enough to get the children out of the car, or we would be driving and we’d stop at an intersection only to have the car die in the middle of the road. We were told by a number of different mechanics who looked at our car that something was draining the battery, but no one could figure out what the problem was, and several of them suggested that we needed to sell the car. But we could not afford a new car, and we didn’t feel like we could sell the car to anyone else in good conscience. Our prayers were answered in a very unexpected way when our car was parked (and no one was in it), and a parked semi truck rolled into the car, causing it to be totaled,which provided us with enough money to put towards purchasing another car that was much more dependable.

And the most recent example that I have seen of the Lord’s hand in our lives is when our fifth baby was hospitalized for 5 days when he was only 5 weeks old. We were glad when he made a relatively quick recovery, but his hospital stay couldn’t have come at a less convenient time (not that hospital trips are ever very convenient), because we had planned a trip across the country to look for a house where we would be moving in upstate New York. We not only had to make new flight and babysitter arrangements, but we had been preparing for months by researching homes for sale. We had to postpone the trip for several weeks, which meant that we also had to start over on all our house-hunting research because many of the houses we had previously looked into were no longer available. We had never bought a house before, and we were already nervous about the whole process, so this only added to the stress. When we went on our house-hunting trip a few weeks later we were glad to find a house that we liked on our first day of searching, and we made an offer that was accepted on the second day of our trip. We noticed later that this house was not put up on the market until after the date that our original trip had been planned for. We were able to move into the house that summer, and it has been a good home for our family since then.

Because we can see these examples in our lives of the part that Heavenly Father plays in our lives – how there is often a reason for our trials, even if we can’t see it at the time – I believe that it helps me not to question the reasons why difficult things happen in our lives, try to endure the trials, and trust in the Lord that there is a reason for them.

Looking for Someplace to Move?

So, in case any of you are looking for a really great place to live, the house across the street from ours went up for sale last week. It’s got 5 bedrooms, 2 ½ baths, an attached 2-car garage, and a full finished basement, and they’re asking $179,900 for it. I haven’t seen the inside of the house, but the outside is cute. It’s in a great neighborhood, the street isn’t busy, it backs up to a wooded park, it borders a walking trail that leads to the elementary school a few blocks away -- which has a really nice playground, it has a flat driveway, it’s in ‘Fairport Electric’ (which means you get a huge price cut on your electric bills, it’s in a great town, and it happens to be right across the street from some pretty nice people who love game nights and are always willing to help out with babysitting. :)

It'd be so fun to have some friends move in right across the street. (If you want to take a look, it’s MLS # R102696).

Our Driveway

This is how our minivan feels about our somewhat inclined driveway whenever we get an inch or so of snow:

Yeah, I agree, I'm getting pretty tired of winter too -- too bad we've still got several months left. At least it hasn't been any worse than Milwaukee winters (yet), actually, it's been more mild than Milwaukee in a lot of ways (so far). (And I think maybe it's about time for some snow tires -- other minivans seem to have no trouble at all with our driveway.)

Random Photos and Videos from January

Here are some cute random, unrelated photos and videos of my adorable little boys:

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cute kiddos – after eating Daddy’s blueberry waffles – enjoying the snow – little pianist – all worn out – Otis and Sam – Kolby learning a new song – swinging in the play room

Half-Way Point

With Courtland turning one tomorrow, Michael and I were commenting that this is the first time ever that I’ll have a one-year-old without being pregnant. When I said that, he started counting in his head and then announced to me that in June we will hit the half-way mark (I will have been pregnant for only one half of the months of our marriage -- so far I've been pregnant for more of our marriage than I've not). I guess that's what you get when you decide to have five kids in five years. :) It’s kind of nice to be to the point in our lives now that we can enjoy the kids and be past all of the pregnancies.

Happy Birthday!

Last Saturday we had a birthday party. Although I don’t generally like to combine parties for the boys because I think they should each get their own special day, since Eli’s and Courtland’s birthdays are only a week apart and Courtland’s only a baby and won’t know the difference anyways, we did a combined birthday party for this year. The party was pretty fun – playing in the basement playroom with all the friends, followed by cake and ice cream (a dinosaur cake for Eli and a polka dot cake for Courtland), Courtland eating his own cake by himself (a 1-year-old birthday tradition in our house), and Eli opening gifts. Eli turned 5 on Sunday and Courtland will be 1 year old tomorrow.

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Courtland Starting to Walk

On January 20th, 2010 at 11 months old Courtland took his first steps. His record that night was four steps in a row. Since then he still prefers crawling to walking because he’s still faster on all fours, but he has been taking more steps here and there the last week or so. I believe his record up to date is a whole 8 steps in a row.

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Courtland Boy

I love Courtland in this cute little sweater, and I just had to take pictures of him the other day. He was adorable! It turned into quite the little photo shoot, and I have to say he really was adorable.

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Curtains

I got some birthday money from family members, and I decided to use it for curtains. I got some really pretty faux silk curtains for the living room (which I put up with some sheer curtains and the curtain rods that the previous owners left in the dining room), and a new black curtain rod for the old sheer white curtains in the dining room, a couple of little rods for the windows beside the back door (where I also used some sheer curtains that were left here when we moved in), and a couple more curtain rods for the master bedroom (where I will hang up the pretty red curtains that my mom gave me a while back as soon as I cut one of them down to size and sew it up – I’m planning on having three curtains when I’m done with that: two for our bedroom and one for the study), and I got a cute set of striped off-white and brown sheets on clearance that I’m planning on using to make curtains for Eli’s and Isaac’s bedroom and use the rest of the set for their bed. Then I’m planning on putting up the blinds that were in the master bedroom when we moved in into Kolby’s, Camden’s, and Courtland’s room, and we’ll be set. It’s nice to have everything start to look ‘finished.’