I think I have the best husband in the world! He is so cute with the kids and so sweet to me. What got me pondering upon the sweetness of this man? Well, last night he took Zach and Pres to deliver some treats around the ward. But instead of just delivering treats, he told the boys that they were going to be “service ninjas.” In order to be a ninja, they had to sneak quickly and quietly, put the treats on the doorstep, and run away before they were caught. Thus, they were ninjas. The boys thought it was awesome! And they had so much more fun than just simply delivering the treats! See, isn’t he the cutest dad?
…ye shall not fear. So says Doctrine & Covenants 38:30. How does that relate to my life right now? Well, today was my math final. I tried to prepare as best I could. Though I faced a bit of apprehension going into the test, the real fear began when I saw the questions. Our instructor had given us a review packet, but he focused more intently on a specific section of questions for the final. The problems that he focused on were those I’ve struggled with more than any other concept in the course. Though I had tried to diligently prepare for the test I would have been better prepared if I had focused in on those questions somehow. How was I to know what he would test us on, when he gave us so much possible material? I needed to be prepared for everything, yet I was tested on questions I was weakest at.
Now for the true point of today’s blog entry. As I sat there taking the test and trying to rack my brain for ways to solve these problems I realized, eventually, how futile it was and that I simply had not prepared enough for those questions. I had a few thoughts about how this relates to life. We can live our whole lives through, devoting time and energy to things that are worthwhile. But do we focus on those things that mean the most? I have heard older men say many times that they wish they’d spent more time with their family, or appreciated their wife more, or put more effort into their calling. How sad it would be to reach the end of this life and after all that hard work realize that it could have been better spent on other things. Things that were more important. It reminds me of Elder Oaks’ talk in last October’s conference about choosing the best things. When this mortal life is done, I’d like to have done those things that matter most. There are so many choices though. How am I supposed to know what is most important? That’s why we have apostles and prophets to guide us. They show us the things which matter most. We can still choose what we do with our lives, but they point out the important things and say “Study these”.
Now, this may just be a clever way to take something good out of a less-than-perfect situation. I have found that we can learn from everything, and getting something positive out of everyday life is something I am striving more to do. Life is more enjoyable when we look for the good and learn from the bad.
- Mike
Yesterday morning I was having one of those Mommy moments when you wonder if your kids ever hear anything you say to them. While I was commiserating, Preston came running upstairs decked out in full “knight attire” and yelling, “I have the on the shield of faith and the armor of God!” I couldn’t help but laugh, but it also made me feel better. I realized that even when it doesn’t seem like they ever listen, some of the things you teach them actually do get through! We had a Family Home Evening Lesson about the armor of God a couple weeks ago, and apparently it sunk it! (These are pictures from the FHE)
So then I decided to spend the rest of the day paying attention to all of the “little pieces of evidence” that prove that they actually do hear some of the things I’m trying to teach them. And I was pleasantly surprised! Here’s the evidence:
- The boys were in the basement playing Legos, and I heard Zach tell Preston to stop spreading the Legos “from here to kingdom come” because they would have to pick them all up. (wonder where they got that phrase!)
- While at the store, the boys were tired of waiting for me to check out, so they went over to the doors that were by the check stands. I heard Zach tell Pres, “Let’s be gentlemen. When someone wants to come in, you open the door for them. When someone needs to go out, I’ll open the door for them.” They proceeded to do just that, and got many nice compliments from the people entering and exiting the store.
- Preston and Zach were practicing their “Spiderman moves”, and I heard them discussing the fact that they couldn’t watch the movie until they were older because it’s rated PG-13. Zach said, “Yeah, I think like maybe when I’m old – like 10 or something – I can watch it. But it’s not made for little kids.”
- I was sitting on the couch feeding Kyle, when Preston came up with an apple and said, “I should eat this on the floor because we can’t have food on the couch, right Mom?”
- At bed time, Mike was at meetings and I was feeding Kyle, so I told the boys to go down and get in their beds and that when I was done with Kyle I would be down to read their beloved A to Z mystery book with them. When I got down there both boys were in their beds. I was very proud of them for listening, and told them how wonderful they were. But I was more proud when Zach said, “Actually, Mom, I wasn’t in bed until I heard you coming down the stairs. I was in the family room looking at my Lego magazine, and then I ran to my bed.” I was so pleased with his honesty!
- That night, Zach woke up in the middle of the night and came upstairs. I was in Kyle’s room feeding him, and Zach came in and said, “Mom, I’m scared. Can we say a prayer?”
So, here are my little pieces of evidence that show that my kids do listen to me every now and then. And some of what I am trying to teach them does sink in. It makes a mother’s heart feel good. I also learned that I should pay attention to the things they are doing right more often. Of course, this is not to say that our day was perfect. They were still the energetic, silly little boys that they always are. For example, I was trying to make apricot jam amid the nuttiness, and I asked Zach and Preston to try and keep Kyle happy while I was stirring the boiling apricots. They were doing great until I heard Kyle start to scream and Zach and Pres start to laugh. I ran in to see what was going on, and Zach and Pres had smashed an apricot onto Kyle’s forehead. They said they thought it would make him laugh. Once we got that cleaned up and I was back to the jam, I heard a big crash. When I got in Kyle’s room this time, Zach and Pres had decided to jump in Kyle’s crib, and had broken it. (Luckily, Mike is very handy and fixed it) Oh well – they may not be perfect, but at least they listen every now and then!
Yes, I live in a house full of boys. So you would expect that spit wads would go along with all of the other wonderful things that little boys love (i.e. dirt, bugs, burps, etc). What you wouldn’t expect is the source of their spit wad knowledge. This weekend we went down to “Yo-Yo Grandma’s” to help in her yard. While we were there, Grandma found some little pipe things that Mike had cut off a part to her air conditioner, and thought, “These would make great pea-shooters.” But alas, we had no peas. So, Yo-Yo Grandma decided to use them for the next best thing: spit wads. She took Zach and Pres outside and, using the pipes, taught them how to make and spit spit wads. Luckily, the new knowledge also came with the ground rules that you can only do spit wads outside (THANK YOU, MOM!). Zach caught on really quickly and had superb spit wad skills. Preston, being 2 years younger, took a little longer to catch on. But when he did – oh boy! Watch out! He thought it was the absolute coolest thing ever. While Zach enjoyed it for awhile and then moved on to hiking and exploring through Grandma’s trees (finding bird egg shells and old wasp nests), Preston stayed enthralled with the spit wads off and on for the rest of the day! Even today, 3 days later, he is still asking if he can go outside and do spit wads! It’s a good thing that they have a Grandma that is so good with little boys! She knows just the thing to catch their interest and let “boys be boys!” Thanks for a fun time, Grandma! We love you!
I guess you could say that we have really become true parents – we have now embarrassed our kids by kissing in front of them. I guess I thought they wouldn’t think it was so funny or embarrassing until they were older, but apparently I was wrong. The kids and I were leaving Mike’s work on the 24th of July, and I was kissing Mike good-bye, when from the back of the van we heard Preston snickering. I turned around, and he had his hand half covering his face and he was kind of snickering. He then asked, “Why do you guys like to kiss each other all the time?” We got a good laugh out of it. But I am actually glad that we are able to provide a positive example of what a good marriage should be like for our boys. Even if they get embarrassed and giggle about it along the way. Ironically, we has just taken this picture an hour earlier during the parade. I guess we really do “like to kiss each other all the time.”
Hooray!!!! Kyle laughed for the first time today!! He’s been so close for awhile, and the other boys have been trying to “teach him” to laugh (without much success). But sure enough, in his own time, he laughed!! Zach and Preston were almost as excited as I was! He’s just the sweetest thing! There is nothing better than a baby’s laugh!
This was Mike’s favorite quote of the week around our house. We were out doing some yard work and the boys (being the 100% boys that they are) were playing with a bunch of potato bugs. Zach asked me what potato bugs do and what they eat, but I wasn’t sure. So, being the resourceful Mom that I am, I said, “Go ask your Dad.” When he asked Mike the same question Mike’s response was, “We’ll have to look it up on the computer.” At that point Zach exclaimed in an exasperated voice, “Why does the computer know EVERYTHING!?!?” Mike’s still laughing about it I think. You can certainly tell that we are raising our kids in the “information era!”
Mary and I celebrated our 8th anniversary this past Sunday, July 20th. We actually started the celebrating on Saturday. We’ve established a tradition of “renewing our vows” in a sense by going back to the temple to do sealings. This time we went down to Salt Lake to go to the Jordan River temple. Mary’s mom took the boys and we headed over to the temple. They weren’t quite ready for us though, so they told us we could go wait in the celestial room. It was great. We were able to spend about 35-40 minutes together in the celestial room. It reminded me of our wedding day, when they took us into the celestial room to wait while all of our guests went into the sealing room. Anyway, it was a great peaceful afternoon with my beautiful bride. She’s even prettier now than she was eight years ago. She was drop dead gorgeous then, but now she looks even better to me. And that’s after three kids! Aren’t all of you guys out there jealous? 
After we went to the temple we had dinner at McGrath’s. It was yummy. I had some good salmon and Mary had some mahi mahi. It was great. Then we went back to Mary’s mom’s and hung out for a while.
The celebration then continued on Sunday as I had a surprise worked out for Mary. I had been trying to think of something cute I could do for Mar without spending a lot of money. I thought it would be fun to bring her to work and have a little candlelight dinner set up for her on the roof. For those of you who don’t know, I work at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center (www.oecenter.com). The Ogden temple is only a block away to the north and there would have been an awesome view of the sunset if I could time it right. Only obstacle was the boys. If I was trying to get her up there at sunset for a candlelight dinner it’d take someone watching the boys late. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to coordinate someone to watch them. So I improvised. My kind first counselor, Brother West, said he could watch the boys while I brought Mary to work. I started driving toward downtown Ogden and told Mary to blindfold herself with my tie. When we got there I had her wait in the car while I got things set up. The tricky part about getting to the roof is that you have to go through most of our mechanical systems (like the air handler) to get there.
It was a bit tricky to guide my blindfolded sweetheart through everything, but she was a real trooper and made it through. I didn’t have time to get a full dinner ready, so we ate some chocolate cake up there. Mary thought it was really sweet. It was rather simple but it was some time alone together and we both had a blast.
The past eight years have held so much change for us. We’ve lived in six different places, had three kids, changed jobs many times, held different callings, the list goes on. What the next eight years holds for us I have no idea, but I’m sure it’ll be an adventure. As long as I’ve got my sweet Mary by my side I know we’ll make it through all of the storms that life will surely bring.
- Mike
