Signing Time and Sacred Ground

One of Michael's favorite things to do right now is signing his ABC's.  Sometimes I'll hear him squawking, "Aaah! Graaah! Craaah! Yaaah!" and look over at him, and he'll be signing his ABC's to himself.  It becomes a game to him if you say or sign them with him.  He just loves it and it's the cutest thing to see this little two year old signing his alphabet.

This little boy has so much he wants to say.  He's constantly doing signs he's learned from watching Signing Time DVDs.  We wish we knew better what he's saying.  Today he was doing a bunch of signs during church and Liz was trying to figure out what he was saying.  Then it dawned on her, he's singing one of the Signing Time songs to himself!  Music is another thing he absolutely loves, so no wonder he picks up signs so easily when they're put with music.

Even though we're still working with several speech therapists to hopefully help him someday learn to talk, we recently added a signing therapist as well.  It's mostly for our sake, to help us learn how to communicate with him through signs, since that's how he prefers to communicate right now.  I really need to take the time to watch Signing Time with him.  I hear it playing in the background all the time and the songs are always playing in my head.  But with sign language, you kinda have to see it if you want to learn it.

A few weeks ago we took the kids to the empty lot where the Fort Collins temple will be built and snapped a few pictures.  It's only about a mile away from our house and is across the street from where we go to church.  The building permit was finally obtained last week, almost three years after the temple was announced.  It will be fun watching the progress on the temple as we attend church each week, and we can't wait for it to be completed!

Little things

One day when I don't feel so entirely washed over by fatigue, maybe I will be much better at writing all the things going on around here. So here's a snapshot of a few things:

The kids thoroughly enjoying snuggle screen-time together

Aunt Julie came for a visit while Brooke enjoyed a splash in the tub

Michael thinks playing with the silverware is super fun

Tim put a light in our family room and let the kids climb the ladder.  No one scared of heights yet!

Michael is trying out a new device that speaks for him.  Here his speech therapist is teaching him how to touch the screen to make it say words.  He is mostly interested in going right to the keyboard app and pressing a letter of the alphabet and then doing the sign for it.  He knows most of his letters by site now too, meaning if I show him a letter, he will do the sign for it.  He laughs and giggles every time this new device "talks" when he presses a button.

These two are fast becoming play-mates.

Me snuggling with Brooklyn and Michael, probably watching Signing Time for the one billionth time.

Trading a ski day for a work day

Yep, this weekend we had to get tough as parents.  Saturday morning the kids arose early to go skiing and were met with the worst news ever: the ski trip has been cancelled, they will be spending the whole day doing chores and no playing allowed.

Oh, it is so hard to be a "tough parent."  We wanted to much to give our kids a great weekend filled with fun memories.  But we had to shift the direction of some patterns we were beginning to see in our kids, namely, entitlement.  Our oldest child in particular was having a very difficult week, lashing out at us and her siblings physically, verbally, demanding we do her every wish and command.  We tried pouring on the patience and love as much as we could.  But by Friday evening, we felt we needed to go the "tough love" direction.

And so we did.  And the first few hours were filled with lots of tears, anger, and pretty clever attempts at negotiation.  But by the end of the day things were going much better with smiles, hugs, and even "thank you's."  We worked alongside the children.  We didn't want them to feel abandoned, but loved.  I hope it made a difference.

Loved

This was on our front lawn with our driveway shoveled yesterday:

Seriously, seriously awesome.  We feel loved.  Thank you, thank you, whoever you are.

Christmas break according to the camera phone

Our Christmas break was very refreshing to toss all the therapies, school schedules, lessons, work for Tim, and just spend time relaxing and doing activities to make memories and strengthen our family relationships.  We didn't travel anywhere as I've called a travel moratorium on Brooke and Michael until those two can make sleeping somewhere other than their own beds a pleasant experience for all of us.

I forgot to mention before Christmas Sarah had a piano recital.  We are loving her new teacher who has really helped Sarah learn to love the piano (after saying she didn't want to play anymore).  She also comes to our house so I don't have to drive one more place - thank heavens.

 Here's some of the things we did over Christmas break according to the camera phone:

I took the oldest 3 kids ice skating one day.  They are really coming along in keeping themselves up on those things:

The kids have seen the movie "Frozen" twice now and take their dolls (thanks to Grandma & Grandpa B. for their Christmas presents) from the movie everywhere they go.  Spencer even totes around the boy from the movie and is usually either using him as a weapon, or having him fight "bad guys."  I was super impressed by the movie (it's hard to impress me with movies), particularly the music and Broadway style of the film.

Took a minute to capture myself with each one of them - in my effort to "be in the picture" more so they will have some proof that I was around:

Also took the oldest 3 to get some ski equipment as they all started ski lessons this year.  It has always been a dream of mine for my kids to be able to ski and this year it finally came to be. We've been carefully budgeting for this.

 Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from their first day of lessons, but they all came away with smiles, even with blizzard like winds, blowing snow and a bitter windchill.  Spencer had a huge grin on his face the whole time.  Whitney sometimes sat and played in the snow when she got tired, and Sarah pretty much mastered the bunny hill.  I was so proud of them. While they skied, I hung out in the lodge with this cutie:

And speaking of mastering, Brooklyn has mastered sitting up and trying to crawl-hop to places she wants to go.  In less than a month, her physical abilities exploded.  She's still not a great sleeper, but she is happier during the day which makes me even more fond of her.

Michael got an awesome haircut.  Tim fed him marshmallows while I trimmed away for 30 minutes.  It worked!

We had some cousins come and visit at the last minute for New Year's.  These kids adore each other and there are always tears involved from the oldest ones when it's time to say goodbye.

Introduced Brooke to something other than rice cereal.  That face, "do I have to eat my squash?" says it all.

 Next up - we are going to work on setting some New Year's goals.  Small ones.  (I promise, mom).

Christmas 2013

Liz:  It has been awhile since I have been the one writing and posting on our blog.  It's been a difficult time the past several months I just haven't had the time or desire to come up with words to write.  So thanks to my marvelous husband who catches all the balls I drop for taking the time to post about some of the major events that have occurred around here.

These two keep our hands full.  Now they are crawling/rolling all over each other. And liking each other more.

Our Christmas was simple and lovely in many ways.  We had to omit some things this year like putting up outdoor Christmas lights because we just haven't had the bandwidth.  We had to choose carefully what we did do and try and make it count.

The kids got one night this year to sleep by the Christmas tree. 

Babies at Christmas time are just the best.  Brooke is rolling around now and frequently found herself under the tree.  Once she even got a bow stuck on her head like she too was a present to our family this year.

Four-year-old Spencer really got into Christmas this year.  I'd frequently find him playing with our Playmobil Santa.

Tim went caroling with his friends and they stopped at our house one of the nights.  Here are the kids peaking out the window as Tim's group was off to spread good cheer and song to other families.

One night we acted out the nativity.  Tim read the story from Luke 2.  Whitney was the angel, Sarah was Mary, Spencer was Joseph, Brooklyn was baby Jesus, and Michael was the donkey/shepherd/wise man.  None of the kids but Whitney wanted to dress up and I guess that's partly because I don't have good dress-ups for the nativity yet.  We had them use their woobie blankets to cover their heads.  The girls had drawn straws for the parts and then we spent 15 minutes trying to convince Sarah to play Mary because she thought Whitney looked prettier as an angel.  Girls.  Sigh.

Christmas morning coming down the stairs

Whitney got a doll for Christmas

Sarah got fairies

Spencer got some of Lighting McQueen's friends

Michael got this kitchen.  One day I will write the miracle of how this came to our home.  It was truly a blessing and answer to prayers.  His therapists will be so proud to see him reaching for those drawers.

Seriously, Christmas babies are the best. 

A Tablet was no where near in the budget this year and was just a dream present I didn't even ask for so I was so excited to open one Christmas morning.  I totally got teary-eyed when Tim told me he had been secretly saving small bonuses from his job for quite a while so he could buy me one. 

One of the best memories from Christmas was our dollar-store adventure.

This year I noticed my kids were very much into the "getting" side of Christmas and had no clue about the "giving" side.  It was really weighing on my mind.  I realized that Tim and I have been stretched so thin over the past several Christmases, we just haven't had the bandwidth to teach the children as much about giving as we should.

Even this year, I purchased their "Christmas buddy" presents for them with the intention they would do chores to earn them, but then I didn't even have the time or ability to come up with extra chores for them to do.  I know that probably sounds crazy, but really, I'm not kidding when I say things have been crazy around here.

So one Saturday before Christmas I decided to take the 3 oldest kids to the dollar store to purchase a present for each member of the family.  I didn't have time to have them earn the money, but I thought if I could at least get them thinking about and learning how to give a present to someone else, it would be a good place to start.  I gave each of them $6 - one for each member of the family - in an envelope with their name on it and told them to keep it in a safe place or let me keep it safe for them.

When we got in the store, Michael - who also came along - started screaming and crying and kept it up for the entire hour we were there.  The kids were fascinated by the dollar store as we don't go there often and immediately began filling their baskets with presents for themselves.  I told Spencer he needed to get things for other family members and not for himself.  He looked up and smiled and said, "Mom, this gun is for you!  And this ball is for Dad! And Spiderman is for Brooklyn!  And Michael gets this car!"  Whitney decided she was going to get 3 presents for daddy because she likes him best.  Eventually, I was able to convince them to pick things a little more fitting for each family member.  It took the children awhile to get their minds wrapped around the idea, but after awhile, they got the hang of it.

Then we went to check out. The cashier must have been having a bad day.  She rolled her eyes as I was helping Spencer count out his money (Michael was still screaming) and Whitney started having a fit and saying, "Mommy!  Mommy!  Mommy!" She managed to kick/run into the cashier behind us, which elicited a mean, "Excuse me little girl!" from that cashier.  I finally said, "Whitney, hold still, I'll be with you in a minute."

Then Spencer found the balloons and started begging for one.  It was Whitney's turn to check out and I said, "Okay, what do you need sweetie?"  "I lost my money, Mom."  The line behind us was getting really long.  The cashier rolled her eyes again and sighed loudly.  We set her presents aside and had Sarah purchase hers.  Then we searched the store for her envelope, which thankfully was in the toy isle, and she was able to purchase her presents.  We walked out to the car where I discovered the reason Michael had been so upset the whole time:  he had tinkled down his leg, soaking his pants and socks and pooling in one of his shoes. Poor guy.

I think we came out alright in the end.  Tim got socks, a screwdriver kit and razor blades.  I got kitchen gadgets.  The kids got some toys or crafts.  Even Brooklyn got a stuffed animal and baby rattle.  It was sweet to see how excited the kids were to give these things to each other with genuine hugs and thanks.  I once heard it said that sometimes Christmas is not for the faint in heart.  But I'm starting to think the time and patience it takes to teach our kids just about anything important is not for the faint in heart either.