Gwen turned 4

I'm still trying to catch up on the last few posts I missed at the end of the summer. Our little Gwen-a-beanie turned 4 September 8, 2010. I asked her what she wanted, and she let me know that she wanted a Superhero party, which turned out to be very fun for our 4 year old crowd.

Dear Gwenabeanie,

These pictures say it all. I love everything about you. Life is more fun with you around. So glad we had a special day to celebrate YOU! Happy birthday Angel!

Love You- Mommy

Boston Temple |October 2010|

We spent Friday and Saturday in Boston. It was a short trip centered around a day at the temple on Saturday. I'll tell you about the craziness of getting there in a minute, but I want to start with the ending of the story since that is the best part. I love the temple. I love the way it feels to be there. Its the peaceful feelings of the Holy Spirit that I love. A lot of times the experience is simple, and sometimes it is very personal. I really think that Yesterday was the most personal experience I have ever had in the temple. I felt very, very close to God during our time there. It reminded me of how much God loves me, how he sent us here to earth with a plan of how we can get back to him, that plan includes our Savior who can get us through anything, how he is the only one who can save us, how he knows how to guide us through life and he knows how to lead us to a true happy life, how I know that God is in charge and we don't have to be scared of what can happen to us here if we join him, how much I love my husband, and how important our work here on Earth is, together.

Now, I'll start at the beginning. . .

I guess I should have expected it this time. It seems like standard procedure for us. We make plans to go to the temple, and everything that can possibly happen to make it hard happens. When we were first married, I swear we were practically fighting by the time we got to the temple every time. This time around, Brad and I made plans to go to the temple about 3 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago, we had everything lined up, and less than 24 hours before we left to make the trip our childcare fell through. I made every call to every person that I could think of, and then called them all again, and again, and again and then we left not knowing if we'd actually both be able to go into the temple, and definitely thought it wouldn't happen together. That night, Beckham, our sleeps through the night every night baby, didn't fall asleep in the 3 1/2 hour car ride down, which meant he didn't have a nap that day, and was shot by the time we arrived and then he couldn't fall asleep at our friends house and he ended up staying up until 11:30 p.m., woke up in the middle of the night (2:30a.m.) screamed like he was scared for about 45 minutes, and then woke up with us at 6:00 a.m. for the day. He stayed awake, fussy, as you can imagine, and then we dropped him off for 3 hours with a babysitter we had never met. . . hoping that he would not traumatize her. As we were driving to the temple in the morning, it was a 1 hour 15 minute drive, starting out in a place we had never been, and our GPS didn't figure out where we were for 15 minutes! We had to guess which way we were driving, and hope we'd end up at the interstate. It "found" us the second we arrived at the interstate. Brad and I both had the same thought, everything that could possibly happen to keep us from the temple has happened, what next?? Well, we almost ran out of gas. Like really, really almost ran out. And not because we weren't trying to find a gas station. In fact, maybe we did run out, but somehow we made it to the gas station just in time. I definitely thought, "maybe we'll just have to not go," about 20 times those 2 days. Somehow it all worked out, and somehow we weren't even talking about how frustrated we were. So glad we still went!

A new cousin

Yesterday, Brad's sister had a baby. The kids and I went over to the hospital as soon as Liv got out of school. Since I was going solo with the 3 kiddos and it was pouring buckets, I opted not to bring my camera. I know, I know, how can I talk about a beautiful new baby without having a picture? I am amazed at how much I love that little thing already. I got a little teary when I heard the news, and felt so full of love for our precious little cousin. We are so excited to welcome the baby into our family. We love you already. Welcome little one.

P.S. I am being cryptic on purpose, I don't want to be the first to announce the name and gender to the blogging world. I'll let the parents do that =0). And as you can imagine, Bridgette looks fabulous, Gary looks happy, sisters look excited, and baby looks perfect.

I hope I can always remember

• How it feels to brush my cheek against this little boys sweet, soft head, and kiss his chubby cheeks.
• The way Brad jumps out of bed the second this little boy makes a peep, scoops him up, and brings him into bed with us.
• The way Beckham loves to cuddle up to Brad
• The night he kept trying to sleep with his head flopped on top of Brads face.
• The way we wake up tired, and we don't even care.
• The way Beckham jibber Jabbers all day long, and almost always ends his nonsense sentences with "Mommy?" clear as a bell.
• How he takes every chance he gets to say, "Uh-oh."
• The way he makes friends everywhere we go because he smiles at everyone he sees.
• How everything about him is soft, and chubby and that makes him so cuddly
• How he stuffs his mouth completely full of food and then looks at us with a look of panic in his eye for whatever food we are holding.
• That every time he looks through his bucket of toys, he finds a ball and a car.
• How he tries to crawl around holding two balls, one in each hand, on the hardwood floors, and his hands keep sliding out from under him, and he doesn't care, and doesn't want put down the balls.
• The way Gwen LOVES him and rolls around on the floor while holding him, he NEVER complains.
• The way his eyes roll back in his head the second his blanket touches his face before he takes a nap.
• The way he laughs when Liv and Gwen startle him.
• The way he makes us all feel.

Sharpening pencils

I have a drawer full of pencils that have needed to be sharpened for weeks now. I keep saving them for when Liv gets home, knowing that Liv would really enjoy the job, and then forgetting about them when she gets home. The other day, Gwen found them, and without asking, collected them all up and sharpened them all. When she was done, she was pleased to find that they made a cute little family of pencils. She brought them over to me, and we had fun playing with her pencil family together. Maybe I can learn from little Gwen, on how to find such joy in little things.

Thomas Hill Standpipe

Do you know what a standpipe is?? In Maine, that is what they call a water tower.
Every year, they open up the standpipe to the public. We walk up to the top, enjoy
the gorgeous view, and then walk back down. This year, we had to go without BR.
I loaded the kids up in the car just in time to make the last of it. And just as we pulled
up, I looked in back to see that Gwen was asleep, as I debated whether or not to wake her up,
and face the possibility of carrying both her and Beckham to the top, I saw Bridgette and Gary,
Who graciously offered to watch her in the car while I went to the top with the other two kiddos.
I think the view was the best we've seen since we've lived here. Peaceful and Gorgeous. Thanks
to our kind Aunt and Uncle for watching sleeping Gwen while we enjoyed the view! Luckily, I took
these two pictures just before my camera ran out of batteries.

4:00 A.M.

Went a little something like this. Gwen came into my room and whispered, "mommy, mommy?" I half opened one eye and said,"What Gwen?" "The toilet is dripping onto the floor." Still mostly asleep, I said, "Thank You Gwen, wash your hands in my bathroom and go to sleep." She did. I forced myself to wake-up, got out of bed, walked toward the bathroom, took 3 steps into the kids, long bathroom, and found myself still 4 feet away from the toilet and standing in an inch deep of water. The back of the toilet was running continuously while the water gushed over the edges. Just then, Brad, who had fallen asleep on the lovesac downstairs, now ran up the stairs, and poked his head in the door with a bit of panic on his face. I thought he had heard Gwen, until he said, "Why is there water dripping down from the light fixture in the kitchen??" I realized it was the dripping that had woken him up. We spent the next hour using every towel in our house to mop up the mess, both upstairs and downstairs, trying to figure out how to drain the water from the ceiling as quickly as possible, and trying to figure out what was wrong with the toilet. In the end, we decided we've got to replace the toilet. On a number of occasions, Brad and I have said, "We love, love, love everything about this house, but the toilets are horrible!" They could practically get clogged on two pieces of toilet paper. We spent the next bit of the early morning trying to go back to sleep. We have the following damage: .5 inch water ring on the ceiling around the light fixture, a 2 inch wide x 3 foot long wet spot in the ceiling about 4 feet way along the drywall seam, and a house full of dirty, wet towels. These are my thoughts.

• It really stinks (not literally) that our new house now has some damage... grr.
• In the last year, Gwen has never woken me up in the middle of the night
• Brad sleeps downstairs maybe 4 times a year.
• If either of these things hadn't happened, I can only imagine the increase of damage we would have had this morning. At the rate the water was gushing out, it would have been at least 5 more gallons of water damage in the ceiling, not to mention the 1 inch x 5 ft x 3 ft of water that I sopped up off of the floor in the bathroom, and whatever of all the water that would have continued to fall all over and sit on our hardwood floors all night.
• You could say Brad sleeping downstairs and Gwen waking up were a coincidence, but I'm sure the weren't. God was giving us a little warning, and preparing the situation to keep us out of more problems.
• God blesses us every day. Even though he didn't keep us from the situation all together, he warned us about the problem early enough to keep us from having major damage from it. As I was going to sleep, all I could think is that I am so grateful to God for that early warning. It is a good reminder, that if I listen, he will always warn me of any danger before it is too late.
• I'm confident we'll be able to fix any damage we have.
• I forgot to mention, that when the water dripped through the light, it dripped right onto the pile of Library books we had just picked up (about 10). Lovely.

Happy Sunday!

-Betsy

This is how she came down from her nap

Excited to tell me she has pink hair now.

Friendship Bracelets

They looked just like this for an hour or more. I can't believe they are old enough to make friendship bracelets. Gwen definitely did it her own little way, but whatever she did, it worked =0).

Other Autumn happenings

We have gone on tons of walks. Some on scooters in the road

Some in the woods

almost all walks have included the girls picking wildflowers for me =0).

We've picked pumpkins

Had our driveway paved! (which means way less dirt in the house! *smile*)

We played with friends

and we enjoyed watching the girls spend hours playing in these boxes we had in the garage

I love this last picture, Liv told me to take a picture on the count of 3 and surprised me by throwing the styrafoam bits in the air. Great idea!

Change of Plans

Brad and I had planned a family get-a-way for the extended weekend. Our destination was Sugarloaf mountain. We drove up Saturday morning. The drive was gorgeous. To shorten the story, we did everything we wanted to do in 1/2 a day, and then found out there was no swimming pool in our hotel, so we decided to go home and have an at home family vacation weekend. So that's what we did, and it turned out to be GREAT! Here's what we did.

My favorite thing we did at Sugarloaf Mountain

was riding up the mountain on the chairlift. It was FREEZING

cold at the top! Everyone loved it, except Beckham.

He did not like being confined. And, he lost one of his shoes on the ride. . .

Brad went back (on foot) and found it!

Sunday, after church, we went to

Leonard's Mills to walk around and enjoy Autumn.

Monday Morning we were treated with Liv organizing a Columbus play.

The rest of the day was filled with: making a fort for the girls in the woods,

Playing red light, green light, scooter light,

Re-building a rockwall

and swinging on the swingset.

So excited to be a school girl!

Gwen was so excited that it is finally her turn to be a school girl. She started Preschool at a local elementary school this year. She absolutely loves it. Gwen is a funny girl she keeps me laughing, and school has added to the entertainment. Here are just a few reasons

• Everyday she comes home and tells me excitedly about school. Usually the story has to do with how she ate ice cream, lollypops, chocolate, and cookies. Some days just the girls get the ice cream, and treats. The boys just get cereal.
• She also frequently tells me about her friends Glue-y, and Crayon-y. She tells us that they are real people. I was skeptical. The punch line is that they are actually real people, and what made me laugh even more is how her cute little mind works. Yesterday, when I dropped her off at school, I asked her who these two friends were, she pointed out a boy and a girl. I asked her teacher the names of her two friends she pointed out. Glue-y. . .Chloe. Crayon-y. . .Drew. Please tell me you get it. Drew....Crayon.
• She has a definite sense of style. We have to make compromises on her outfits every day. I've decided that she has a bit of Pippy-long-stocking in her. I've started calling her Pip. Everything she wears has a little flair to it, and she can always pull it off =0). For example, this dress with the polkadot leggings. Do you remember last year when she always wore two different shoes, a red sparkly shoe and a pink one? She has decided that now she wants all of her shirts tucked in, wishes I would let her wear leggings alone with her shirt, and almost always has two mismatched socks on. She has also decided that she LOVES to wear her hair in a pony-tail (which by the way doesn't work but she doesn't care.)
• She loves to pack her back pack with all of the necessary items. Some of her favorite items include: Cut up scraps of paper, Beckham's cars, Princess figurines, her fur-real kitty, Brad's scriptures, all of her dirty clothes when she "cleans" her room, puzzle pieces, piles of books, packages of crackers, the list goes on. As you can imagine, there have been a number of days when she can't even lift her backpack to put it on her shoulders =0).

Gwen is a joy. She exudes enthusiasm and I love it. I tell her that she has a smile that makes everyone happy. It's true. I've been so proud of her as she has had to conform to a new schedule and restrictions. Even when she really doesn't want to do things (i.e. wear jeans), she always makes the right choice. Every single time. I can count on it. She may have a really hard time not crying about it, but she always makes the right choice all by herself, and I think that says a lot about her little spirit. I love this girl.

And now she's a 1st Grader

There are only a few events left until I feel like I have caught up on blogging. This is one of them. Liv started school the last day of August. It has gone amazingly well. I wondered how well the transition would go. Since she was starting a new school. Liv gets very attached to things and I thought she might really miss her old school, and her friends there. I was more than pleasantly surprised. She never looked back. Liv hopped on the bus that first day walked confidently right into her classroom, gave me a quick hug, and felt comfortable with it all from the first moment. Another thing that I was wondering was whether or not she would be ok with riding the bus. Last year she begged me to drive her all of the time, now she loves the bus. She tells me every day how much she loves her bus driver, Dwayne, as she hops happily off of the bus. Then she waits at the end of the driveway just so that she can watch the bus after it turns around at the end of the cul-de-sac and she waves away, her bus driver slows down a bit, honks, and waves out the window. You should see how happy that makes her =0). We also adore her teacher. Liv is thriving.

Do I have to put a disclaimer here?? I am using my blog as my journal, which means that I am subjecting you to what could be considered bragging about my children. Please don't take it too seriously, and skip it if you would like. This is really only here so that I can remember it, and Liv can read it someday and know what she was like.

I spoke with Liv's teacher last night on the phone. She called me about volunteering in the classroom. We ended up chatting for almost an hour. She had really wonderful things to say about "Olivia." Mrs. P said that Liv is a natural leader, and when the other children need help with something, they are gravitated to Liv to help them out. She also said Liv is a great reader and that she is "responsible with that gift." Meaning, she is very willing to help others out with their reading and she enjoys reading herself. Mrs. P said the other day, Liv came to her and said, "I'm a really good reader. Do you want to have a break from reading to the class, and I'll read everyone the afternoon story?" And so she did. Mrs. P also said that she sees Liv as someone who "watches and analyzes any situation quietly until she knows what to expect from it and then she enters confidently and thoughtfully." I love to see the person my little Miss Olivia is. It was really fun for me to talk to her teacher and find out how her personality shows in school. Love that girl =0).

Adoption

Melissa is one of my best friends from college at BYU. She and her husband are trying to adopt. Melissa is a kind, loving person. I know that she and her husband will make wonderful parents. If you know anyone who is thinking about adoption, please pass along their link.

https://www.itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/25046602/