Two Month Update!!

Hello Everybody!
To summarize, we’ve never been so overwhelmed in our lives as we have been the past few months, and we’ve been through a lot. But, we’ve also been blessed and we’ve found a little peaceful moment to finally take it all in. To backup a bit we’ve had 4 snow storms this year!! It’s unbelievable – nobody here is prepared for it, and they don’t sell snow shovels and sleds at the department stores. The snow was tons of fun of course, the kids built snowmen, went sledding and had snowball fights. However, every time it did snow, Peter had to work, and sometimes overnight. Its called a code-W, for weather, and the whole Admin staff meets together to ensure that hosp. staff, nurses and doctors make it to work. Considering that all these snowstorms came on the weekend, Peter worked right through the weekends. He worked everyday for 20 days straight because of the snow storms. Church was also cancelled twice due to snow, and we hulled up inside for days, having sacrament together with neighbors.

I am still homeschooling – and its working fine, but its hard to juggle some days, and doubly hard with an infant. However, as Patrick grows older, things get easier. The kids are learning so fast! And it is somewhat of an exhilarating feeling to watch them learn to read and love it, and to know that I helped get them there. Laurie is taking ballet and tap. Christian is taking gymnastics, and really wants to take baseball this spring. We have our Childrens Book Club and now an LDS co-op where we learn all about explorers and another class on herbs, which has been very interesting. We’ve made homemade gingerale, chewed on licorice bark to brush our teeth and sucked on cinnamon bark to warm our bodies – fascinating and a lot of fun. They’re both taking a few co-op classes, such as geography and one of which is a chess class for Christian. Its so funny to listen to him talk about it. His eyes get really big and he’ll tell me that ‘it was so awesome today’ and I’ll ask him if he won, and he’ll say ‘no, not this time,’ but then he’ll still be smiling (huh?!) I think one of the best things about being a parent is discovering who your children are, what they like, what they don’t like, while watching them try new things. From what I’ve narrowed down in Christian he’s very particular, like his daddy, sort of a perfectionist. He speaks very methodically, ‘this happened then that happened, and I did this because of this.’ He enjoys having contact with others, giggling, teasing, wrestling, but he does not like contact sports and he’s not physically aggressive, however he does like to play with his light sabers and his marshmallow gun that Jackson made for him. He’s not an animal person and has little interest in cats, dogs etc, but would like to have a lizard someday. He likes a challenge and I’m amazed by his initiative in reading and piano. He has a budding testimony and will read scriptures on his own and say his prayers, choosing his words very carefully. He asks lots of questions about life and God. He’s also driven a bit with music. I signed him up for piano, because he asked for it, and even though he’s not a prodigy at it, he really enjoys it and will practice daily so he can be ready for his weekly lesson. Christian is both very affectionate and a big tease. He loves almost any sort of game – Chess, Checkers, Zooreka, Go Fish, Phase 10, Old Maid, Memory, Computer games, Video games at the neighbors house. I can see him doing well with sports like baseball, tennis and swimming in the future. And pursuing a sit down career that requires a more studious nature. He’s an absolute delight and we love him.

Laurie is my exuberant one. She is my social butterfly and has too many friends to name. She’s still the one with all the energy and drama in the house. And she knows just how to make new friends at ease, and usually will have them giggling within minutes. She’s a goof to say the least and has taught me a lot about living life. She’s constantly moving, if she’s awake, she’s moving. And even though she’s a bit of a clutz, and very bouncey, she also knows how to move with grace. When she tip-toes or pirouettes on the ballet floor she looks lovely and natural. It seems as though there’s a song in her head at all hours of the day and she simply moves to keep in time. Whenever we get in the car she asks us to put on a girl song. I believe she’ll always have dancing in her life. If you ever sit near her while she’s coloring, you can hear her repeating movie lines from her favorite Disney and Pixar movies, and she’ll laugh and giggle at the punch line every time. It’s the funniest thing, I’ve heard her repeat a whole minute worth of lines, and she’ll throw in the different voices too. And then just laugh – its so cute. I wish I could memorize information that well. She’s still crazy about dogs and horses, princesses and tea parties. She loves to dress up and if she had her way she would be in a dress 24/7. She’s very quick with picking up on reading and math – it almost takes my breath away. She also scares Peter and I a bit, she’s already had her first kiss, and then fainted away like a limp noodle making a bit of a scene in primary. We’ve had to lay down the law and she’s only 5! She loves to play with the boys and will try to get in with them, whatever they’re doing. In fact if I had to describe her in two words it would be – cowgirl/ballerina. I can see her doing just about whatever she wants with her life as long as it involves people and excitement. She is lovely and full of life and we love her.

Gabriel is boy all over, along with the grunts, head-butting and favorite battle weapons. However, he is also my most sensitive and will freeze-up if he feels pressure to perform. We can’t ever put him on the spot, stare at him too long, insist on anything, or be firm with the potty training. He freezes, and it usually takes quite awhile for him to return to normal. Praise works wonders with him, so that’s what we do. He’s very affectionate and would really like a puppy, as he’s told me several times. He’s very good with Patrick and will play with him in a way that only two peas in a pod can. Patrick adores him. Some of Gabe’s favorite things to do are playing in the sandbox, swinging on the swing sets and taking long baths with his battle warrior guys. After the first snow storm, I bundled the kids up and Gabriel was probably the most excited to go outside. However, when we got outside I finally realized why he was so excited. He thought he was going to be able to play in the sandbox. So I humored him, making the best out of it and I opened the sand box for him. Unfortunately, the sand was like rock and the sand toys were frozen under it. He just stood there and cried, it was so sad! Gabriel covets every bit of time he can get with me, since its hard to come by some days. But when its just me and him, we have a lot of fun together and he’s my little sweetie.

Patrick is a sweet baby, and a bit of a squealer when he cries. He’s huge, already 20lbs. He just started eating cereal and he got his first tooth – a molar!??? He LOVES the kids and he has a contagious giggle. He sleeps through the night and loves to take baths. Its almost time to transfer him to the kids room, we’re going to miss him, well, I am anyway :)

Two weeks ago we had a little excitement. The AHA group here asked Peter to come to a basketball game and accept the game ball as part of their Heart awareness initiative. So we all got courtside tickets, dressed up in red to cheer for the Richmond Spiders, (#25 in the nation I found out). And we took the kids to their first Basketball game. It was a lot of fun. The kids were so excited and Christian couldn’t keep his eyes off the court. He probably had the most fun and would go crazy whenever our team scored. During half time we went out to center court and accepted the ball together – something I dreaded, but we all survived. It was a lot of fun!

And yesterday we attended the Kite Festival here in Richmond. The day was beautiful and windy – just perfect for flying kites. Gabriel had the easiest time with his kite, which was so cheap, but the easiest to fly. He just sort of walked around and it floated just above him. Christian and Peter had some fun getting their airplane kite to stay up J And Laurie probably got her kite to fly the highest. Hopefully we can stay here and make this a tradition, we had lots of fun together!

Peter is seriously looking for a job now. We’re not sure where we’ll end up a couple months from now, but we would like to stay here a bit longer. The Hosp where he’s working at is going to keep him employed until he finds a new job, unless of course there’s a shortfall, then he’ll be the first to go. So we’re grateful for that, but a bit nervous too. Please keep us in your prayers if you can.

Missing UTAH!!