Today at church

Weston was giving a talk in primary today (his second one ever), so grandma and great-grandma came to hear him! They got to our church building a few minutes early, so when I went into the hall to take Sophie pottie near the end of sacrament meeting, there they were waiting on the couch in the foyer! Mom snapped this precious little picture of Sophie with great-grandma Van Buren (who we have been so blessed to spend time with these past 3 months)! I love these blue-eyed beauties!Here is Weston, anticipating his talk with great excitement... or possibly trepidation. I'm not really sure. But he did a pretty great job! He talked about how agency is a gift that we need to use wisely. I was proud of my little man.

the last day of 2011

I quite accidentally happened upon these pictures this evening and thought they were worth posting! They were taken on New Year's Eve. Shae-Leigh was of course with me while Jason was working in Arizona, and we decided to go to the park. We went about half an hour before dusk, which gave us just enough time to kick around the soccer ball for awhile and play until it was too dark to see. It was an especially fun evening, probably because there was that exciting "holiday" feeling in the air, or perhaps because we were on the precipice of a new year... or because we knew we were going to be drinking sparkling juice later that evening (you just never know what scandalous things we might do next)!
The sky looked amazing, but I had a difficult time capturing it with Shae-Leigh's phone camera, which is all I had to work with that evening.

Looking at these pictures and remembering how much fun we had makes me want to go back to the park! I'm pretty sure my kids could use more park in their life!

a lesson from my son

Since becoming a mom, I think my dad has mentioned the following observation, oh, I don't know, at least several hundred times: "Everything about our relationship with our children is designed to teach us about our own relationship with God."

As many of you already know, Weston has an extraordinary love for Ghostbusters. He was a Ghostbuster for Halloween (along with Jason). But that was really only the beginning. Weston is a ghostbuster pretty much wherever he goes! When his proton pack needs repair (or when his flight suit has been temporarily confiscated as a result of misbehavior), he does turn into his alter-ego, Spiderman, for awhile. But to Weston, nothing is as great as busting ghosts!

For the past week or two Weston has been on a real Spiderman kick, so I haven't given much thought to Ghostbusters lately (a welcome break, I assure you)! When Weston asked where his flight suit was a couple of days ago, I was confident it was hanging up in a closet, or maybe stuffed in the bottom of a hamper. It didn't seem to be in any of the usual places so yesterday we decided to make a point of finding it. First Jason looked. Then I looked. Then we all looked... for over an hour we searched in every nook and cranny of our house, to no avail. We thought maybe it had accidently ended up in one of the bags of old clothes that recently got dropped off at the DI. Every few minutes during the intense search, Weston would go to his room, drop to his knees, and say another prayer that we would find his ghostbuster uniform.

Finally, I was getting kind of worried. I actually felt a little sick to my stomach at the thought of some kid paying $3 for a flight suit that meant the world to my son (I also didn't like the idea of some random kid sporting a costume with the name GLASS on it)! So, I said a prayer. After the prayer I looked up in the closet where Sophie's backpack was hanging. It looked a little full so I decided to open it up and...voilà! There is was!

Today while Sophie was napping I had a rare uninterrupted moment with Weston. I cuddled him on my lap (which is getting increasingly difficult to do), and told him how much I love him and am proud of him. We then had the following brief exchange:

Weston: "Mommy, why did you pray for me to find my flight suit?"

Me: "Because it was important to you, and I LOVE YOU!"

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the thought came to my mind: If it is important to me, it is important to God, because he loves me! I already know this in my brain, but it seemed to sink more deeply into my heart. I love my kids so intensely and so deeply. How is it possibly that God loves me just as much, and in fact, more? I don't know, but I am grateful that he does.

True glamour, Sophie style

When I saw Sophie slathering globs of lipgloss on her lips, I was a little bugged...is there any personal item of mine that she doesn't get into!?
But I had to laugh out loud when I saw her face! I love how she didn't wipe her mouth before applying all that goop!

Finally, a school visit!

Weston's preschool at Duncan has a bunch of rules that I wasn't used to, because they didn't exist in his preschool last year (at Tartan). At the beginning of the year I asked Mrs. Solem about possibly visiting or helping out in the class sometime, to which she responded that she would have to look into it because they are supposed to have some kind of special forms for that, yada, yada, yada. Apparently parents haven't even been let in the classroom to bring treats on their kid's birthday! At our parent/teacher conference before Christmas break I brought it up again, and this time (obviously exasperated by all the red tape) Mrs. Solem said that she has tried for months to get permission the proper way, and that she was just going to start allowing it. So, Sophie and I got to spend the entire two and a half hours of preschool with Weston's class today! It was so much fun, and both kids were rather excited this morning (as you can imagine)!
Sophie had a blast... and even though she is only 2, she fit right in with the other kids! She got to sit next to Weston during circle time, and he was so sweet to her. I would have loved to snap some shots there at school, but I guess that would have been a *little* distracting to the other students (understatement)! Here is a video of the two of them before we left in the morning:


As we were driving home I asked Weston the usual question, "how was school!?" He told me that it was good, but he just wishes that I could have stayed with him in his class today (he often says he wishes that I could be one of his teachers in his class). Then he burst out into laughter! Silly boy. I'm just glad he is still young enough to want his mom around! :)

Ordinary moments

This post is a little random, but I've decided that I have missed too many ordinary moments. So here are a few!

Dec. 23rd:

Weston: "I wish all bad guys have to eat something spicy that burn their mouth and make their tongue yellow forever!"

Dec. 25th:

Weston: "I am a grumpy old fish!" It should be noted that this comment did not emerge from any conversation relating to fish whatsoever, or grumpiness for that matter! He was also running around like a kid in a candy store with glee after opening all of his presents...

Dec. 26th:

As we are discussing where to put the awesome US map I got for Christmas, conversation turns to what the United States is and why we love it. Again using the opportunity to teach Weston how blessed we are and how we have a responsibility to protect freedom, the conversation then turns to the "bad guys" that don't want us to be free. I assured Weston (again!) that we don't want to hurt or kill theses "bad guys," but that we just wanted them to lose their power.

Weston had a few inventive suggestions for how this might be accomplished which I found amusing:

1. Put them in a refrigerator so they get really cold and can't move. Then they'll lose their power for sure!

2. "Steam" them in the oven... this one got vetoed already, mostly because ovens aren't for steaming (lol)!!

3. Make them put something really gross in their mouths like LEAVES!

Kid logic is the best.

December 29th:

Today, while praying over lunch:

Sophie: "Heavenly Father, I bless all the people I like!" I guess she got tired of naming them all every time she prays. I had to hide a chuckle...

1/2/12

Today Weston called Sophie Mr. Bumpley. Where does he come up with this stuff?

Sophie tells me she is doing "ka-kratie" and sometimes "p-platies!" She really gets into it. It usually involves an initial pose, followed by a spin, and then a giddy collapse.

One of Weston's favorite silly activities is putting things on his head... like every night when he takes his shirt off to hop in the bath, he just leaves it on his head for a few minutes and then runs around like a tornado until I force him to actually get in the bath! Here he is doing the same thing with jeans...

So, at the YMCA where I work out they have one of those buttons you can push to open the doors automatically. Sophie LOVES pushing the button and watching the doors open, but she knows that she'll get in trouble if she does it just to do it. Fortunately for her, the last couple of days there have been people entering the building right as we are leaving. After pushing the button and opening the doors, Sophie exclaims (to the people entering the building), "there ya go!" She just sounds so darn grown-up! I was looking at some of the pictures I took during the month of December and was rather taken aback when I realized also just how grown up she is looking these days:

Whenever I get anywhere near Weston with the camera he quickly forces a frown (to be silly). Here is one of his ridiculous frowns, followed by a moment where I caught him in laughter!

I love that my days are filled with these two adorable, smart, loving kiddos. When I was younger I remember wondering if I would feel unfulfilled being a stay-at-home mom. I had so many ambitions and dreams (and still do), and I didn't know how I would feel. I even wondered if I would get bored. Instead, my life has been filled in new and amazing ways that I never could have fathomed before! To me, there is no greater evidence of the love that God has for his children than the gift he gives us in allowing us to be parents. One of the very greatest blessings in my life is getting to stay home with my children... it is a gift that I cherish more than almost anything in the world. There is no place I would rather be!!