How do you sleep?

Gardening FHE lesson

I started working for the Census again this week (I'm hoping this session of the Census lasts longer than last time) so it is back to a busy schedule. It is funny how things work sometimes. For the past few weeks we have really been struggling with getting enough work and therefore, finances. But just like it has continued to prove happen in times past, it gets as bad as it can and then a miracle happens. David is working full time now, I'm working full time and the flower shop wants me to put in some major hours during the week before Mother's day. Pay your tithing and all works out! That is one area in the gospel that I have never lost faith in.

So I came home Monday and had to throw together a Family Home Evening lesson. The night before, Spring Houck and I had went and saw the girls that we visit teach from church. One of the ladies, Sister Allen, sent us home with tomato plants and bean seeds. So I knew that our activity would center around gardening. So off to the computer I went for some ideas on how to teach kids about gardening. I didn't really like what I came across so I decided to take the LDS route and of course there was a slew of internet Family Home Evening ideas out there on gardening. I could incorporate the love Heavenly Father has for us in all that he gave us here on Earth with His creations...to faith being like our little bean seeds that can grow as we nourish it with prayer. And while all of the ideas I came across was wonderful and true I decided to go with the Resurrection. So we talked about how plants die in the winter but come back to life in the spring and how it symbolizes Jesus' death and resurrection. I love this picture! I love how the boys want to help so much and how little Hyrum just wants to do what the big boys do. The girl in this picture is Julia. She is our neighbor and she comes over quite often. She joined us during our lesson tonight. It's nice having a little girl around here!

It's not much of a garden but we don't own the yard and I wanted what little area we could get away with to be next to the fence so that the beans could climb up it. I'm excited to see how it all turns out.

A hospital visit....and too much time to think!

On Friday, David and I spent the day with Hyrum in Tulsa. A doctors visit to see a Pediatric Surgeon in the morning turned into an all day experience at St. Francis Hospital. Hyrum has had constipation issues since birth. The poor kid will push and push just to produce a small streak on his diaper. His stomach is always swollen. And no matter how much fiber we try to put in his diet we have the same issues over and over. I'm sure if you have an idea for us to try to get him more regular...well, there is a good chance we have tried it. We have done the all natural things, the medicine routes, enemas, suppositories, massaging his stomach to try and actually encourage the waste to move in his stomach...you name it, we've tried it! MiraLAX has been our only somewhat effective tool. Did you know that you can have diarrhea and still be constipated? I did not know this until our poor little Hyrum would get so backed up that finally whatever that MiraLAX softened/watered down (or however you describe it!) would just shoot past his mass of blockage at the end of his large intestine. As you can imagine, he gets pretty whiny and clingy at times; I'm sure because of this. I've always found it odd, though, that he is more irritable right after a successful bowel movement than he is when his stomach is huge and has been working on a bowel movement for literally days! Anyways, Hryum will have a barium enema on Monday where they will do a series of x-rays. After that, probably the following week, he will have a surgery to see if he has Hirschsprung Disease. They will take a tiny piece of his large intestine out for a biopsy. And we will go from there. It is very rare and I'm sure he doesn't have it. At the same time though, I don't know what to do for him anymore. Anyways, it's time to stop freaking myself out and to brag on what a good kid I have! We waited in offices, waiting rooms, cubicles, etc... for hours and while Hyrum missed his nap and he didn't cry once. He melted the hearts of a number of older people who were waiting also at the hospital. One lady told us that he was just the happiest baby she had seen in a long time and that it said something about his parents. I absolutely loved hearing that but if it would have been Brigham waiting all this time, I'm almost positive she would have said quite the opposite about David and I! She would have seen a 5 year old bouncing off the couches, knocking over magazines, telling us how bored he was every 5 seconds, and eventually landing his nose in a number of random corners as punishment for not listening to us....yes, we are mean parents who do put our children in corners in public! Ok, so maybe (only maybe though) Brigham wouldn't do just that bad.

As we were leaving the hospital I told David just how grateful that Hyrum is so obedient. Levi was a very obedient baby and is now a very obedient child. I love to hear mom tell people about how she couldn't believe that her then 10 month old grandson, when she and Dad came to visit us in Rexburg, knew to never go in the bathroom....even if everyone else was in there. He would crawl right up to that piece of metal that divided our hallway and the bathroom floor and just stop. I had a bathroom fetish I guess you could say and I was always afraid of him getting in the toilet or getting all those nasty bathroom germs on him so he only entered in when I carried him into the bathtub! Oh how things change. Earlier tonight David had to give Hryum a bath because Hryum put his hands in the toilet water because we, of course, let our kids go in the bathroom whenever they want now. Oh the things I would tell myself to calm down about only 7 years ago! Anyways, Hyrum is a lot like Levi. You tell him once not to do something and he stops immediately. Sure, he'll pout about it but he always stops right away. He showed that over and over again at the hospital while we were all bored. I sure do love my boys....yes, even my stubborn Brigham. He may drive me nuts sometimes with his need to be independent but he is the one out of all 3 boys that always seems to have us laughing. As Auntie say, "Brigham is full of one liners!" I think what makes it so funny is that he isn't trying to be funny....he's trying to be literal - which is almost always hilarious! I'll end this post with something he said to me today.

He and Levi had been playing on the PlayStation and I thought they had been on there to long so I told them to get off. Brigham's reply was, "But mom, I didn't even hurt my neck. That means it wasn't a long time!" He wasn't trying to be funny, he was just stating the fact he hadn't been sitting on the ground looking up at the TV in one direction long enough to cause any damage to his neck....Hello! Obviously, he hadn't been on there long enough!

Dandelion wishes

I just went in my bedroom where Levi and Brigham were laying on my bed playing their Nintendo DS when Levi said to me, "Hi the sick mom." I kind of laughed to myself because I tried to explain to the boys earlier that I wasn't sick but that I had hurt my neck. I have been in extreme pain since Saturday morning and it has limited me in many ways...and has unfortunately made me a crabby mom. David was wonderful to me today and took total care of the boys when he got home from work and kept them outside away from me. I didn't know until a few minutes ago that they had been using their dandelion wishes on me. Just a few seconds after telling the "sick" mom hello, he and Brigham got all excited telling me about how they kept "blowing away the flowers" to wish that I would get better. Oh, the little things that melt a mother's heart.

Happy Birthday Elders!

Tonight we had a special surprise waiting for the missionaries when they came to our house.....a surprise birthday party! Elder Morrison and Elder Sattler's birthdays are just a week apart so it seemed a perfect opportunity to let them know how much we appreciate them both. David uses the missionaries quite a bit for service projects and such so we sure do appreciate their dedication to serving the members of the branch. As we waited for the missionaries to show up the kids kept busy with this bubbles/rocket toy. They jumped on that orange part of the toy and up went bubbles and the rocket. Once again, thank you Little Americans Day Care!
I think the missionaries were very surprised when they showed up for what was suppose to be just Family Home Evening with the Adams Family and then pulling up to tons of people outside. They seemed a little on the confused side as we said, "Surprise!" and then sang happy birthday to them.

Everyone brought a little something to add to the dinner and all in all, I think everyone was well fed.

When we started FHE I had this large amount of love for the members of our little branch well up inside of me. I thought of something that I watched after one of the conferences this past week. There was a show on BYUTV about the members in the France area. I think it was about the members after WWII. What stuck out to me was how they spoke of how close all the members were back then. Meetings were all throughout the day, back then, on Sundays and so families pretty much just stayed all day at church instead of going all the way back to their homes (some lived quite a distance away). The families ate together and just really had a close community because of it. I was thinking of those members during that time in France. I am very grateful that I don't spend all day Sunday at church, I have to admit, but I couldn't help but wonder if we are missing out of the closeness that they felt for one another. It felt really good to feel so much love for all of the members of our little church as I was listening to Elder Sattler and President Roberts teach us of the importance of prayer.

This is just a cute picture of Amanda Roberts swinging with Hyrum. He fell in love with her tonight!

The Easter Bunny left a few things for the boys and I thought it was fitting that they were left in one of their favorite places; a well used box! We have had this lawnmower box in our house for at least a week and it has gotten much use. They hide in it, they eat in it, they watch TV in it, they play with their Legos in it and the list goes on. Yesterday and today was General Conference and so we have been spending a lot of time in doors watching it on TV. A funny thing happened this morning. Conference isn't short and for a child I'm sure it seems like an eternity to end. Conference is similar to our Sacrament meetings in that it begins with a song then a prayer. A few speakers talk to us and then another song is sung. After that we have more speakers, another song and then the closing prayer. So yesterday we watched this at 11:00-1:00 and then another session at 3:00-5:00. By this morning I knew that Levi was used to the routine when at 11:00 this morning after the song I told the boys to be quite and fold their arms (for the prayer). Levi gets all excited and says, "Is it the end?!" It had just started and he was hopeful, I guess, that this prayer was the closing prayer!
Here are the kids enjoying the neighbor dog.....poor kids. Only Logan gets to enjoy a dog; April and I are not dog people. They will be stuck with cats and fish for the rest of their lives in our houses! Soon we were called inside to have yummy lunch. We all bring something but Grandma and Grandpa always end up providing most of it....thank you!
Soon after we were heading outside to hunt for Easter Eggs. I found this one with a Mosquito Eater on it. I really can't stand bugs but I actually thought this was kind of pretty. And can I tell you one thing that I really like about blogging? It makes me educate myself so I'll know what I'm talking about on here! Or sometimes it just makes me wonder if what I grew up knowing was actually correct so I start looking things up. April had to remind me that they were called Mosquito Eaters but wasn't really sure if they actually did what their name indicates. I looked it up and their real names are Crane Flies and they don't eat mosquitoes at all.

After getting all their "goods" at home, hunting for Easter Eggs this afternoon and then getting even more stuff from the Easter Bunny who left stuff for all the great grand kids at Grandma and Grandpa's house....our kids are on sugar high cloud 9!

Yesterday after our second round of conference I realized that I hadn't taught them anything about the real meaning of Easter this year. I'm usually much better about that. I really don't like how commercialised our holidays get so we focus our Family Home Evening before the actual holiday on the real meaning of it and then remind them about it on the actual holiday. That didn't happen this time so I'm going to try to make up for it tomorrow at FHE. Until then, I can only try to express to my Father in Heaven just how grateful I am that He let His son do what He did. After a year like last year, I can't imagine going on in a life so uncomfortable. So miserable without knowing that there actually was a man on this Earth who has felt those same terrible things and that He did the only thing possible to make it so that someone so imperfect as I could still live with my Father in Heaven again. Life is anything but simple most of the time but given the alternative without Him, I can finally say that I would do last year a thousand times over to feel peace. There is only one way that comes.

Just a funny picture

I took this picture today on our way home from Arkansas. I'll never understand how babies can sleep in just about any position....though, I guess after being in the womb for so long in such odd positions maybe this picture makes a little more sense....except for the fact that he is almost 3 years old!