guns and swords

Kwint had a fantastic week. He energetically worked hard feeling great and happy. Kaeleb and I suffered in misery with strep throat, while Brennan agonized over anear infection, and both boys got eye infections. I am glad, and not bitter at all, that Kwint managed to escape our doom. And wonder of wonders, after a day or two of good ol' Amoxicillin we were back in the swing of things, mostly.

Kaeleb is an interesting little guy. One one hand, he is very sensitive and empathic. He cares deeply, loves to read, is very smart and still loves to snuggle. Mostly though, he just loves "getting" bad guys. He uses any means available, be it gun, sword, lightning, fire bombs, etc. Most of his toys are not really what they are "disguised" to be. For example, his green baseball bat- you only think it's a baseball bat- it's a poison bat which shoots deadly poison into hornors and windstripers (his imaginary arch-enemies).

On Friday Kwint came home for lunch. Kaeleb had been playing quietly in his room, Brennan was napping and I was rather enjoying myself cleaning and doing laundry. Kwint went in his room to say hi. He came out laughing and said, "You need to go see what he is doing in there."

I walked in and found Kaeleb sitting on a footstool with another stool next to him. On the stool was a sword and a gun made out of chunky lego blocks. On the floor in front of him were several stuffed dinosaurs and Fortress Maximus (big transformer) and in front of them were neat rows of swords and guns. I said, "Wow- this is quite a set up. What are you doing?" He replied, "Palpatine, Darth Vader and me are selling guns for 4 dollars to all these other guys."

Go back in time 3 years and I was one of the moms who swore I'd never buy a gun for my son. By the time he was two he made one for himself out of styrofoam. I thought, "Well, my as kids my husband and brothers played with guns and they are all decent, model citizens. If I don't buy him one he will just make more." So, I bought him a four pack of squirtguns for a dollar, and the rest is history.

Now he has teamed up with Vader and the Emporer? What have we done!!?? (Actually, he told me they switched over to the force and are good guys now, or he wouldn't have gone into business with them. Phew!) We thought it was really funny on Friday, but after thinking about it all weekend we think maybe we need to get him more sports equipment and try to get him some new hobbies.

All boys have a warrior in them, a good guy- bad guy, good vs. evil thing, right? I remember my brothers playing GI Joe, army guys, transformers, and other such "boy" games. When they played with me, we pretended to be cats. Sometimes they played house with me, too. But I wonder what it is that comes with every guy that makes them so interested in getting the bad guy?

Our little Brennan is quite a funny one. He loves to play. Now that he is crawling he can get anything he wants and is very excited about it. He spends every waking moment crawling around the house grabbing things, carrying or pushing them over to the hard, tile floor and smacking them on it to hear the loud noise.

He has a growing vocabulary. I remember being amazed when our niece Abby starting saying words at 7 months, and now our 7 month old is saying Dada, Mama, Baba, and hi. Maybe it runs in the family, Kaeleb was 8 months old. It's really cute. He cries for his Baba when we give him a solid food he doesn't like and when he's tired. He cries desperately for Dada when he wants to be picked up. We are trying to decide if he is saying Kaeleb, too. He says bu-bub, which we thought was baba, but he says it slightly different and usually when Kaeleb is doing something funny.

We are looking forward to this weekend, and hope we have some good stories to tell next week.

Going Green

In honor of Earth Day next Tuesday I have been thinking about new ways to go green. (I am celebrating all month.) In case you are wondering, yes, all the yoga and has made me a bit weird, including going mostly vegetarian- the word sparingly means a lot to me when it comes to meat. I will not stop shaving my legs or wearing makeup though.

I have been making little changes here and there for a few years, like recycling more and using more tupperware and less sandwich bags, etc. This week I replaced all mu household cleaners with Green Works cleaning products which were on sale at Walmart. I am quite excited. They smell really nice and there are no chemicals running down the drain into the earth. If anyone has any suggestions for me to try, I want to make a couple more subtle changes the rest of the month.

Kwint went to L.A. for a Millionaire Mind Seminar from Thursday night to Sunday. He learned so much and is way pumped about the business. He came back with some great ideas and plans for our financial freedom. If anyone is interested, you can buy a book by T. Harv Ecker called "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind". (I know that should be underlined, not in quotes, but there is no underline feature on the posting site, unless I am blind.) Harv can thank me later for writing that.

The boys and I had 3 big slumber parties in Mom's room. I barricaded the door and slept right next to my cell phone. We kept busy all weekend so we wouldn't notice how lonely we were for Dad. It did not work. We love him so much. We are thankful for how hard he works for us and we are trying to do our part.

Brennan is army crawling all over the house. He takes about 3 crawl steps and then flops down to scoot across the house. He follows me around the house and cries if I leave him too long. Kaeleb has been making him laugh and laugh. Kaeleb jumps up and down making weird noises and Brennan guffaws wildly. I love how much they love each other. Kaeleb already has plans for a little sister named Princess Leia to join him (Luke) and Brennan (Yoda) in the force. I told him he has to wait until Yoda sleeps through the night before I will even consider it.

That is about it for us last week. We haven't been able to work on the yard at all. I hope we can get some things done this weekend.

Look what I can do!

I missed a week! I needed to sleep more than I needed to blog last week. Tonight I feel the same way, so this will be short.

First, we loved General Conference and were so grateful for the answers to prayers, inspirations received, and the Spirit we felt as we listened to the Brethren, especially President Monson. We are truly blessed and know that the gospel is a Plan of Happiness.

Since we last blogged Brennan is sitting on his own and is one step away from crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees and propels himself forward, but forgets to move his hands and nosedives. He also army crawls on his forearms. By next week we are sure he will have put the two together and be crawling everywhere.

It has been funny to look up and see him going after something, or suddenly find him an inch away when he started out 15 feet across the room.

Kaeleb has been awesome. We have been hiking a lot lately and he loves it sooo much! It is so fun to watch him and listen to him chatter about spidermanning up and crab walking down the red rocks. This is why we love St. George!!

Festivities

We've had a festive week. Wow!

Monday we all wore our green shirts. We had a special FHE on what St. Patrick's Day means and learned some comical tidbits about traditions like kissing the ole Blarney stone, (I looked up that one for you Dan.) shamrocks, and leprechauns. It was rather interesting. I can't believe we've spent 30 years wearing green and pinching each other without ever questioning why.

The midweek was a flurry of business and activity. Kwint works his head off all week. I had enrichment on Tues night where I sang at the RS B-day party. On Wed we went to my friends' spring boutique, (they were selling fun spring hair pretties and swimsuits. Kaeleb played outside in the mud with his friends the whole time). We also had "school" with Karter and Mikell where we decorated Eaaster eggs. On Thursday we ran errands getting ready for Nana (my mom) to come, and on Friday we picked her up from the airport shuttle.

Friday night we went to dinner to celebrate my birthday (uh, 22.... for the 9th time). How I feel about that is a blog for another day.

We went to the art festival on Saturday morning and had a blast there. They added a lot of fun things for the kids this year. Kaeleb was thrilled to find shamrocks in the grass at the park- he was more excited about that than the arts and crafts booth. We also toured the historic old tabernacle.

Saturday night the Robinsons joined us for calzones and cupcakes. We played games and laughed. I will leave out the part about Coby crashing his truck and getting lost while 4 wheeling in the desert.... oh, oops, did I write that? J/K Cobs! This is my cake... and the family chocoholics salivating over it.

Easter morning was a joy. Kaeleb was so excited about his legos- the Rebel Scout Speeder. He is way into Lego Star Wars. Brennan got 3 new soft baseballs. He liked the grass in his basket best, though.
After church we had the annual Easter egg hunt at the Robinson's and played games, including a game once called "psychologist" which we have now dubbed "Stump Sadie" because we couldn't slide anything past her.

It has been fabulous to have my mom here for all the fun. Kaeleb really monopolizes her. He is pretty sure the only reason she's here is to comply with his every whim, but we have had some nice time to talk and do other things too.

Brennan had his shots on Tuesday and has had a really hard time sleeping and eating since then. (Not to worry- he's 18 and 1/2 pounds, he won't waste away.) He has always hard time staying asleep anyway, but this week has been ridiculous. He sleeps great- as long as we don't put him down. Kwint and I are going bananas. We are getting so exhausted from 6 months of no sleep, starting a new business, losing my father, being in a new home, etc. We think we could handle it all if Bren would sleep through the night. As it is, we are scraping by on the end of our ropes all the time. BUT- we love the little guy so much. During the day he smiles all the time and exudes so much love that we know it is worth every hour of lost sleep.

Hi ho, hi ho....it's off to work we go

Thanks for all of your comments, everyone. I needed a boost tonight and was grateful to see nice words from our friends. By the way, Trent, astro turf sounds fabulous right now.

Tam and Dave are saving our bacon on the yard. They are so knowledgeable and willing to help and we really appreciate all of their help. They helped us lay the pavers and dig trenches and pretty much worked their heads off on Saturday. It is amazing how much goes into landscaping. We are never moving again, especially to a new house with no yard.

Great learning experiences are plentiful at Turning Leaf. There, also, is a place where lots of time, effort, and energy are yielding fruits to be thankful for. Balancing it all has been a challenge, but we will make it work.

The boys are great. Kaeleb just rolls with our shinanigans and Brennan smiles through it all. One good thing about all the recent hard work is that we are using it as an opportunity to teach Kaeleb about working for money and paying tithing. He's not only worked in the yard, but has been earning coins for doing extra chores. He gets so excited about putting his money in his piggy bank.

Bren is just cute. I wear him around in the sling a lot while I work and he loves it. He watches everything, reaches for everything, and if he gets it, promptly puts it in his mouth. When he finds something he likes he kicks his feet and says "ooo, oooo, oooo." It is fun to watch him learn. He has started saying "Dada". He says it mostly when he wants to be picked up or needs attention. I knew he'd say it first- he LOVES Kwint. He likes me, but oh boy... Dada takes the cake. I love it.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Welllll..... What a week. We had a really hard week. Upon reflecting on the good, the bad, the ugly of it all.... I have decided not to elaborate on the grumpies, the tears, the temper tantrums, or the emotional outbursts- and no, I am not referring to the children, though they had their fair share of all of the above.

On Friday morning I was looking through the memoriam on President Hinckley, reading what Pres. Eyring said about him being an optimist. I realized that so often we (meaning "I") think to ourselves, "What's the worst that could happen?" when we are worrying or stewing about something, and plan out what we'd do or feel, just to make sure we could handle it if it happened. I thought to myself, "Why not think'What's the best that could happen?' and plan for that instead." In that same way, I feel the need to move past the uglies of the week and highlight the goods.

Our neice, Sadie, is in middle school, and her Family and Consumer Science class put together a 3 day preschool as a class project. She invited Kaeleb to go, and he was Oh So Excited. He played games, did art work, ate snacks, and learned a few thug gestures from his 8th grade buddy. He ran out every day bursting with excitement. He kept saying "and then, and then, and then, and then...."

Kwint's wellness center had a booth at the Washington County School District's Wellness Fair (thank you, Tam.). He had a lot of fun and felt that they got some good exposure. Two other colleagues were in L.A. and established a contract with some of the schools there to do workshops and trainings in parenting and such. It is so exciting to watch things progress.

We have started on our yard. Kwint and Kaeleb have been out contouring the dirt with their shovels. (Kaeleb uses a garden spade.) This will be *quite* the project. We are so looking forward to the reward of our efforts though.

We enjoyed the weekend with our family. We went to the home and garden show with Dave, Tam, and Coby (which, by the way had very little in the way of home or garden, so we went to the Home Depot and got sprinkler stuff), then to a new pizza joint with Mom and Dad Kemp, and Kris and Barbi's family.

We learned a lot about parenting this week. Love, love, love. We have to stay in touch with the innocence underneath the limit testing behaviors of our 3 year old or the reflux and teething of our baby, and teach with patience and love. We learned about repentance in sharing time today First, a funny story- Sister Rousch said "Have you ever done something you felt bad about and wished you could make it better? .... What can we do if we feel that way?" Kaeleb blurted out "Well, we just have to deal with it." We ended up having a rough evening where Kaeleb was able to practice repentance (which was, of course the answer Sis Rousch was looking for) and we were able to learn patience and forgiveness. There are so many valuable lessons to be learned from our kids as we teach.

For Better or for Worse

Welcome to our world....'nuff said. (Double click and it should enlarge)