Conference, Water Slides, Food Storage, and Funny Things the Boys Have Said

So, we’ve had a nice week, ending with two days of watching our church’s General Conference broadcast, which is always nice. During conference the prophet and other leaders of the church speak, with musical numbers by the choir in between. There are two 2-hour sessions on Saturday and two on Sunday, and an evening session for the priesthood on Saturday too (Michael got to go out to dinner with his Grandpa McIntosh and uncle Rich before they went to the priesthood session, which was a tradition for them when we lived in Utah in the past, so that was nice). This happens twice a year, so it is a nice time to spend the days with the family and watch together. Usually for the morning sessions we start out all sitting and watching, and after a little while the boys end up playing in the background while Michael and I attempt to listen to the conference talks. Then for the afternoon sessions the boys all take a nap after lunch so we get a chance to listen without any interruptions. But this time Kolby actually wanted to stay up and watch the afternoon sessions too. I thought that it was just his way of avoiding naps, so I told him that he could stay up and watch conference, but if he got tired or wanted to play it would be time for naps. We were surprised when he actually sat and watched for the whole 2-hour session – that’s pretty good for a 5-year-old.

This week we also had time for some fun. On Tuesday evening we enjoyed a dinner organized by Grandma Bradshaw with us, Courtland, Grandma, Mel and Christian, and Michael’s cousins, Joe and Heidi Skousen and their baby Porter, Chelsie Perry, Janie Terreros, and Nancy, Tyler, and Kathryn Perry. It was so thoughtful of Grandma Bradshaw to put together that little dinner. (And it was very nice of Grandma Faun to watch the older boys for us so that we could enjoy the dinner). On our way home we picked up a couple movies at the Red Box. Since we have the Clearplay DVD player that filters the violence, language, and other inappropriate content so we can enjoy any movie without worrying about the rating, we got two that we had heard were good: Slumdog Millionaire and Seven Pounds. We liked the edited version of Slumdog Millionaire, and we weren’t too fond of the ending of Seven Pounds.

On Wednesday evening Eli and I went for his night out to the Rec. Center to swim. They have a water slide that is at least 2 stories high (if not 3), and Eli was just barely tall enough to go on it for the first time. He and I climbed the tall stairs and he went all by himself, followed by me after he was already down. We also did a little swimming that night, but most of our time was spent climbing the stairs and sliding down the water slide. We went 13 times before Eli told me he wanted to go on his own and that I should wait at the bottom to watch him come out. He went several times on his own before he wanted me to go with him again a few more times at the end. In total he went down that slide 20 times. It was a fun night, all except the time when he jumped into me from the side of the pool when I wasn’t expecting him, and his mouth hit my head and he cut his lip. He was fine except that he was bleeding a bit and there weren’t any paper towels in the bathroom so we went to the first aid station for paper towels. The kid working there went to get a head lifeguard to see if he needed to file an accident report, even though it was just a cut lip and I told him Eli was fine, and fortunately the lifeguard agreed with me – he said we didn’t need to file a report as long as I wasn’t going to sue them for it.

We also enjoyed some meals and games with the Owens this week. We played Thurn and Taxis with them, which is my favorite board game. Speaking of games, last Sunday evening we were able to talk to our good friends, the Hedgecocks, from Milwaukee, and play several games online with them too.

I also found time this week to update our food storage. I took out all the items that will expire in the next 5 months or so (so we don’t have to worry about rotating food out of the storage while we are moving and getting moved in to a new place). Then I decided to move all the remaining food items around so that similar items are in the same boxes and I condensed some of the storage boxes that had empty space in them from 8 storage boxes down to 4. Then I updated my inventory list with all of those changes. It took a few days to get that all done, but it feels nice to be all organized. We have also been trying to use some of the food storage items that we are not used to cooking with. Besides making a big batch of bread earlier this week (which I’ve done before, but it has been a while since I hadn’t made any bread since before the baby was born), I made a mix of 4 different grains and cooked them into a hot cereal for the boys for breakfast. They really like their “breakfast mix,” but I think that the recipe needs a little tweaking before it’s something that Michael or I would commit to eating regularly. But it feels good to have the boys eating a little healthier.

And yesterday was a nice day out, so after the afternoon conference session we got to go outside and play in the yard with the boys. I helped Grandma trim back her rose bushes, which look much better now that they are under control, while Michael fed the baby and played “I Spy” with the boys. At one point he said, “I spy something that is hot. And it’s about 5’ 8”. I turned and smiled because I knew he was referring to me. Eli’s guess was pretty cute, though. He said, “I know, it’s an octopus. And octopus has 8 legs!” (I guess that he got so excited with being able to associate the number 8 with how many legs and octopus has, that he didn’t consider the fact that there are no octopuses in the back yard for Michael to “spy.”)

That reminds me of a couple other cute things the boys have said lately. A few weeks ago Kolby was sitting reading a little picture book with Eli and Camden. They had been reading for a little while and I hadn’t been paying too much attention, and then I heard Kolby ask, “What is this animal?” I looked at the picture and told him that it was an ostrich. Kolby turned to me and said, “Mommy, don’t tell them that! I’m teaching them – if you tell them, they will never learn it on their own!”

And a few weeks ago I was talking to the little boys about how to spell their names. Mostly I was just repeating the spelling of Camden’s and Isaac’s names over and over for them to get used to hearing the letters, and asking them what letters their names started with. After spelling Camden’s name several times, I said “C is for Camden,” and Eli quickly piped in and finished my sentence with, “that’s good enough for him.” [Some of you parents may be familiar with the song that the Sesame Street character, Cookie Monster, sings: “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me . . .”].

Well, last night after we got the boys in bed Michael and I again started looking at houses online. We had started to compile a pretty good list before Courtland went into the hospital, which we set aside when we had to delay our Rochester trip (because our realtor said that the houses are going really fast out there right now, many selling within the week they are listed, so we didn’t want to waste our time last month making a list of houses that would mostly be sold by the time we made our trip). We are leaving on the 18th of April, so with 2 weeks to go we started to compile our house list again. We spent several hours last night looking through all the MLS listings that our realtor had sent us, and then after Michael fell asleep around 10pm I spent three more hours looking at houses on Craigslist.com. Keep your fingers crossed for us that we will be able to go out there and find a house that will be good for our family.

So, this morning Michael got up with the boys and got ready for work. When I got up I fed the boys breakfast while Michael fed Courtland before rushing off to work. Although his work schedule isn’t quite as nice as last month’s, it is still a nice schedule. And he is really loving this rotation with the melanoma surgeon. He has been very busy at work, but the surgeon is taking the time to really teach Michael a lot and he has gotten to help with some procedures already, so that is really nice. So, now I am typing this as the boys run in and out from playing in the back yard (it’s a pretty nice day today, although they do need sweatshirts, but I think it’s supposed to rain again in a couple days – I wish it would just make up it’s mind and get all the cold and wet days over with before it got to the nice warm days so we could enjoy the outdoors and put away all the winter clothes, but I guess that’s what you get with Spring here. Someday we’ll be able to live in a place where we can enjoy the outdoors year round, someday). This morning so far I’ve cleaned up after breakfast, gotten the boys all dressed, gotten Courtland down for a nap, cut Camden’s hair, posted his haircut pictures to the blog, and now I’m ready to start looking up houses again on the internet before lunch, putting the boys down for a nap, and going to a doctor’s appointment later on this afternoon.