The Last Couple of Weeks

We’ve had a good, busy last couple of weeks here at the Bradshaw house. We’ve enjoyed trips to the library, going to playgrounds on the days it’s been warm, Mommy working at the family history center and Daddy playing in his Tuesday night soccer games, and continuing to dig up the grass in our little garden plot that keeps filling with muddy water every time it rains – but we finally got it all out yesterday. The boys and I have been listening to audio books from the library whenever we drive in the car. After we listened to The Wizard of Oz and Mathilda last month, we started on the Narnia books. So far we listened to The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, and we started into The Horse and His Boy this week. (I just heard Kolby as he was playing with a firefighter figurine say, I am the White Witch – I’m going to turn you to stone!”)

Last week we enjoyed some especially good weather, even getting up into the high 80s a couple of days. On Thursday night I met my friend Jen at the church (that’s the night she and I usually work in the family history center together, but both our husband’s had scout meetings so we had to let them know we couldn’t come that night because of our kids), and we walked over to Kreag Rd Park, where the kids had fun playing and climbing trees until Michael came and met us around 8:30pm. And then on Friday morning Danielle called and we met at Center Park – I’m glad she called, because although we would have enjoyed the nice weather outside, it was good to be motivated to go to the park. The kids had fun on the playground, and I enjoyed not feeling cold at all, even though I was wearing capris. We walked a little on the trails, and then the boys went and played with some other kids who were catching tadpoles in a pond nearby. The boys had so much fun that we picked up our own little fisherman’s net so they could go frog catching whenever they want. Kolby made a goal this week and met his goal each day of the week, so his reward was the net – we’re looking forward to going frog catching the next free day we have that is nice and warm out again.

Oh, that reminds me. Guess what Eli did in the woods near our house the other day? He caught his first snake! We were taking a walk and I looked down and saw a little snake beside the trail and I was going to pick it up, but I hesitated because I didn’t know if there were any poisonous snakes out here in the East or not. That’s when Eli reached down and picked it up. It didn’t try to bite him, so I took it from him and we took it home, drilled some holes in the lid of an extra-big plastic pretzel jar and made a “snake house,” then went inside and got on the internet to learn about snakes in New York state. We learned that there are only 3 kinds of poisonous snakes in the state, two different kinds of rattle snakes and a copperhead, but they are all rare in the state, and none of those are here in our area of the state. But we still spent some time learning the differences in head and eye shapes of poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, and watching you-tube videos to see what rattle snakes look and sound like. I thought it was quite fun, actually.

We also had a really fun day on Monday this week, when we had playgroup at the zoo. We had a zoo pass in Milwaukee, but we only went to the zoo once in Utah, and hadn’t gone here yet. When I told the boys we were going to go, Kolby said, “Oh, I didn’t know they had a zoo in this city.” I called and told them Kolby was missing school for the day, and it was worth it. Although it was a little rainy on our drive out there in the morning, it warmed up and was a really nice day. We saw all the animals with Jen and Danielle and their kids, enjoyed lunch together, and we didn’t end up going home until around 3:30 that afternoon.

Last weekend was Easter Sunday, and it also happened to be general conference for our church – two times a year there is a conference where the leaders of the church broadcast several sessions of talks on a Saturday and Sunday for everyone in the church all around the world to watch or listen to. We enjoyed watching the conference sessions over the internet, although it’s good that they also send out a magazine with all of the written conference talks next month, because the boys didn’t quite stay silent for the entire thing. We also did an Easter egg hunt for the boys on Saturday (because the weather was supposed to be really nice on Saturday, and we didn’t know if it’d be as warm out on Sunday or not). So they got their Easter baskets – each boy got a little kid-sized shovel or trowel, a pair of kid-sized garden gloves, and a packet of seed flowers so they can plant them in the yard. I tried to tell the boys that Spring reminds us of Jesus because when the world is covered in snow in winter then it turns to spring and the snow melts and the flowers grow, it reminds us of when Jesus died and then he was resurrected. I don’t know if they really got much out of that little talk, because they were pretty distracted by the little plastic eggs ‘hidden’ all over the back yard, but they did pause long enough to let us snap a few pictures of them with their little garden tools before rushing off to find their eggs. After they found all the eggs, and Michael read them the Easter stories that Nana and Papa sent, the younger boys went down for naps (so we got to enjoy the quiet during the next session of conference). The boys spent the rest of the week taking their baskets and the empty plastic eggs and hiding them in the yard so they could play “Easter egg hunt” together. Pretty cute.

Let’s see – what else has been going on this week? Oh yeah, Michael and I had an appointment with someone to get a quote on our bathroom. After reading up on how to do tile work we were confident that we could do the job, but we also realized that to do it well (and to do it with all our kids to take care of too) it would take quite a bit longer than the week vacation time that Michael has off work next month, which might make things a little difficult since we have one and a half baths in this house, so that upstairs bathroom has the only shower in the house and it would be out of commission for the entire length of the job. So we decided to look into having someone do it for us, and we found someone we really feel good about. And it just so happens that his quote for the job ended up being about as much as we had saved for the job (even though we never told him our budget), and we will end up not only having the tiling done on the floor and the walls around the tub and having the green tub reglazed so it will be white, but he’s also going to put in new faucet fixtures and drains in the tub and the sink, put in a new vanity counter top/sink, put a marble piece across the floor in the doorway, make an alcove area in the shower for soap and shampoo, and put in the baseboards. Once he’s done, we’ll just have a handful of little finishing touches that we can do ourselves – painting, replacing the medicine cabinet/mirror, light fixture, putting in a towel rack, and installing a GFI outlet. Then that room will be all done – and it should look really great too. As we’ve been getting excited about this project and picked out the tile and the fixtures, I was remarking to Michael that this will be the first time since we’ve been married that we’ll actually have a nice, pretty bathroom – instead of the ones they always have in all the apartments we’ve ever been in that have outdated pastel colored tiles, toilets, and tubs with globs of caulk that you can never get really clean-looking because the mold was in before they re-caulked over it, so there’s no way to get rid of it short of removing everything and re-caulking it all. Anyways, it’ll be really nice to have something that is clean, classy, and comfortable, and I think it should really help out when we end up selling this house someday too.

Oh, and last week Eli had his spring concert at preschool – he was so cute singing all his little songs about the Peter Rabbit story. I’ll try to get some videos up from that soon. And I was also able to put away all the boys’ winter clothes and get out all the summer clothes. (Now I’m ready for the garages sales to get going around here so we can try to find the summer clothing items that we’re short on for the boys). We also went to the library on Thursday this week so the boys could return their books and pick out a new batch, and we found out that there is a little play time for the kids on Thursdays, so we stayed for that until it was time to pick Eli up from preschool, and the boys had fun doing that, and it was nice to talk to some of the other moms there too. Then on Friday morning I watched Danielle’s boys for her while she had her doctor’s appointment. On Friday night Michael picked up a movie from Red Box that we watched after the boys went to bed, and we would definitely not recommend the movie, Where the Wild Things Are. I haven’t been too excited about most of the movies they’ve been making over the last few years from the old classic children’s books – mostly just because the books are so short and they have to make up so much extra content to fill a whole movie that they really take away from the original story – but I thought from the previews that this one might be cute. But not only was it not cute or just so-so – it was very strange and not worth watching (evidenced by the fact that Michael fell asleep after about 15 minutes of it).

On a better note, one of the sisters at church offered to watch our boys for us so Michael and I could go to the temple together Saturday morning, which was really nice since it’s been almost a year since we got to go together. When we got home we were able to work on our garden a bit more with the boys, and then we went on a date last night where we went to Lowes and Home Depot and picked out tub and sink fixtures for the bathroom, then we went to dinner at Applebees and used a free gift card so we had a nice steak dinner for about $2.

And Michael’s brother did some digital lighting work on a movie called Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, so someone at Michael’s work lent us the series of books that the movie was based on, so we’ve been reading those. The books are written for a young audience, so they are a pretty easy read. The books seem kind of like Harry Potter, except the story is all about Greek mythology but based in the modern day. The books are pretty cute – tying in information about mythology while also using a lot of humor. I started reading the books because I wanted to read them before seeing the movie, but lately I’ve been reading kind of as a way to preview them to see if I think they’d be good for the boys to read when they’re 10 or 12 or so. I think that they are pretty cute books, as long as the kids were old enough first to understand the difference between God and the mythology of the Greek gods, then it’s kind of a fun way to tie in the information about those myths in a way that kids could enjoy it. So, I just started on book 4 of 5, almost done with those.

The kids are doing pretty well too lately. Kolby is enjoying his piano lessons, playing outdoors, and is looking forward to going to 1st grade next year for the full day of school. I think we want to try to get him into soccer or something this summer, if we can work out the schedule for it. Kolby has also really blossomed with his reading lately. They had a reading initiative at his school a couple months ago when they asked the kids to read 15 minutes a day, and I knew he couldn’t read that much on his own – I mean he’s a good reader, but he’s only in kindergarten, he wasn’t reading whole books by himself. But I just told him to pick some books anyways and we set the timer, and I asked him to read aloud figuring that I’d have to help him a lot, but he totally surprised me a he was doing most of the reading, only asking for my help on a few words here and there. Since then we’ve tried to keep up the 15 minutes of reading most days and we’ve moved from short picture books and board books to the ‘easy reader’ books from the library, and even some of the really, really short early chapter books. He still asks for my help with words, but has improved so much from doing this – I guess practice makes perfect, even with reading.

Eli is really loving preschool. He gets along well with the other kids, even Emma (a spunky little girl who is in his class at church and in preschool). I guess the two of them clashed a little in the beginning on the year (as Emma’s mom would put it, Emma and Eli have personalities are that make them the natural kids to vie for control of the class), but they must have reconciled their differences, since their primary teacher at church told us that they have announced that they are married now. Eli loves his little piano lessons from Daddy, and is so proud of himself that he gets to be a big boy and make lunches for himself and his brothers just like Kolby.

Camden is cute. He was excited when I put away the winter clothes and got out the summer stuff, but we didn’t have any summer pajamas that fit him, so when I found some the other day for him he was so excited that he insisted on wearing them as soon as we got home – around 11:30am. Camden has also been a little more cautious than his brothers at times – not that any of my boys aren’t very active and rambunctious, but he isn’t always as daring as the other boys when it comes to climbing and stuff. But I noticed the other day that he got up on top the monkey bars at the playground and crawled across the top of the bars. He got nervous when he got to the end and asked for help getting down, and I tried to encourage him to be independent if possible, saying that I was glad to help him down, but if he couldn’t get down by himself he wasn’t allowed to get up that high again. So I was glad when it worked and he refused my help and swung down from the bar all by himself, and then he went right back and did it again.

Isaac is as busy as ever, and very affectionate – he loves kisses and hugs and he has even gotten pretty good at going down for naps or bedtime lately, just as long as he has his manta, at least two board books, his Elmo pillows (the ones that Grandma Bev made for Kolby and Eli for Christmas several years ago that Isaac has claimed as his own), a hug and kiss, his comforter over his blanket, and his door left open a crack at night. But hey – I’m fine with all that if he actually stays in his room and says good night happily. He has been enjoying playing outdoors too. He’s big enough now to easily keep up with his big brothers, but lately Courtland has also started moving enough to start to keep up with Isaac sometimes, so it’s been fun to see them play together. Actually, it’s quite funny because sometimes the boys play this game where Courtland is ‘it’ and they all follow him around and then hide or freeze whenever he turns around, but it’s kind of fun to see them all playing together. Isaac is a sweet little guy, and it’s been nice too that he has started speaking more clearly lately too.

And Courtland has gotten to an age that I really enjoy – I like it when kids get old enough to start really walking around and playing with their siblings, but before they hit the stage that some kids hit when their favorite word is ‘no.’ He has started to say a few words. Other than Dada and Mama, he has said Papa, Off, Holah, and his most recent word, Uh-oh, is really cute. He loves travelling around the back yard – walking all over in the grass and getting up and down off the deck – he really gets around quite well. And he’s also started at the stairs again – after he fell down the stairs in the house a couple times he got scared and mostly left them alone, but this week he got over that fear and we can’t keep him away, but fortunately he’s almost to the point where I feel comfortable about his ability to come down the stairs feet first on his tummy, so that’ll be a nice day when that’s no longer a worry. He has also discovered his two new favorite things in the house – the trash can and the toilet (I’ve really been stressing the importance of closing the bathroom door to the other boys and I’ve got a baby lock on the cupboard where the trash can is kept). So, he’s been keeping me busy, but he continues to be a really mild tempered kid (except I was so surprised by the temper tantrum he threw when we had to leave the library play group to pick up Eli from school this week – he’d never done that before, which almost made it a little funny – almost).

Anyways, things are going well with us, and if you’ve made it through this whole post you must be a pretty dedicated reader. We miss all of our family and friends who aren’t nearby. Love you all!