Random Pictures

Just a few cell phone pictures I've forgotten to journal over the past few months.

 Pillows are a great source of entertainment in a hotel room! 

 Ruger thinking he can hear music through his forehead...

 ...and Levi showing him the correct way to do it.

 Ruger will sleep and cuddle with Daddy any day...

 ...but will only do that with Mommy when he's sick.

Hyrum found this Pikachu at the Treehouse Museum and wanted to take a picture.  But not just any picture.  A picture where Pikachu is giving him bunny ears in a picture!

"I just really want to help people"

Levi and Brigham are at Boy Scout camp in Idaho right now and so it leaves lots of time with Ruger and Hyrum.  But I'm used to all this time with Ruger.  So it's been fun to just get to talk randomly with Hyrum.  To be daily reminded just how tender this boy is.

I was going through some pictures and found this one.  It fits perfectly for this journal entry.  I found this in our hotel room when we weren't living at home because of the mold problem.  This kid loves the Lord and His Son.  On his own time.  Not just at church.  He turns 9 next month and yet he still is as tender as he was a few years ago.  Time hasn't changed him like it does so many of us.  

The other day I was working in our garden when one of our neighbors came out her back door.  We talked for a bit but before we went our separate ways she had to share with me something that Hyrum had said to her.  She is an elderly lady living by herself.  David and I lightly nudge them to do things like shovel her driveway when it snows and they always do it.  So this didn't surprise me to, to much but it still made me so very proud.  She said that she was taking her trash can to the curb when Hyrum came up to her and asked her if she would like him to do it for her.  She was worried that it was a little too heavy for him so she said that she would do it.  She said that what he said next brought tears to her eyes because she knew he meant it.  He said, "I just really want to help people."  

And nothing could be more true about this child of mine.  He really does want to help people.  He randomly asks me almost every day if he can help me.

I am so grateful that Heavenly Father sent him to me.  I'm so grateful that he is in my life to remind me daily to think of others more than I do myself.  I struggle with this.  But Hyrum helps me to remember that this life is not all about me.

Winter Camping

When you don't post stuff right away, you forget details.  I remember this happened sometime around Levi's surgery.

Levi went with the Boy Scouts to go to the A frame cabin (around the Eden area) to stay the night.  They needed another adult so David went with them.  I remember being really glad because I was worried about Levi and his health.  It just made me feel a lot better knowing Daddy was with him.

They had to make quite the hike up to the cabin because the vehicles wouldn't make it up that hill.  A few winters ago I made that same hike in the snow and it was anything but easy.  But on the way down, the following day, I guess the boys sled down so that made it a lot easier.  Smart boys!

I'm so grateful that we live in such a beautiful place.  I am so grateful that Levi is a part of an organization where I can trust his leaders.  But more than anything, as I am typing this, I am so very grateful for a husband who willingly went with Levi's group to help.  I hope Levi remembers times like these and because of these times, KNOWS that his father loves him very much.

Always Saving His Life

 I love this child, so very much.

He does adorable things like his brothers did.

Like wanting to watch the trash/dump truck that comes weekly.

However, his brothers didn't try to find the highest possible place to watch said trash/dump truck.

 And that is the story of my life right now.  Saving the life of a super cute toddler.  Every. Single. Day.

 Saving him from a cat (Which Nico is so very patient with him.  I never thought in a million years, when we first got Nico as a very naughty kitten, that I would be able to say this about him.  But its true.  Nico is so very patient with Ruger.) is far from my biggest worries though.

 It is like this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.  

He falls off of things this high up all the time, too.  Does that stop him?  Absolutely not!  And the thing that just baffles me is how he gets there.  I can be gone for a very brief amount of time and I find him in places like this.  He usually pulls up his little ride along thing that Uncle Chuck gave him just before he turned one.  Then STANDS on the handle bars!  That is so very unstable and falls all the time doing it but it doesn't stop him.  

(Here's a picture of him when he first got this thing....when I thought it was cute!)

I will admit that his little ride along thing makes me laugh at times though.  Ruger also uses this thing to irritate his brothers.  When they don't pay attention to him (like if they are playing on some kind of electronic device) he rams that thing right into their legs.  I shouldn't laugh but they get so mad and take it away from him.  It usually ends up in Ruger's pack-n-play because they know Ruger can't get to it.  

Then comes the toddler whining...