Books Have Saved Me!!

We have had some gorgeous weather over the past few days. The boys have been able to get outside and jump on the trampoline and ride bikes. However, the winter weeks leading up to this were rough. The boys have been (literally at times) bouncing off the walls. And the noise. The noise! Do you know how loud five little boys can be when they're all playing and wrestling at the same time? Logan has already learned that he has to be very loud to get any attention. The thing that has saved my sanity at times has been books. Both Liam and Andrew love to read, Colin is becoming a very good little reader, Aidan loves to look at picture books, and Logan loves to chew on them. So when things get too crazy, I holler, "Go read something!" In a few minutes, blissful silence...for awhile.

Last week: Brandon and Colin are listening to Harry Potter together, while Andrew and Liam enjoy their own books. Ah, sweet silence!

Elf Disco!

Andrew's Big Day

Andrew was BAPTIZED yesterday!

We are so grateful that he chose to take this important step in his life.

We rounded everyone up for a quick photo after. It wasn't easy!

(Note Brandon's improvement from his beard.)

Here are also a few pictures from some recent events in Andrew's life:

He had a rock-climbing birthday party last month, and scrambled up the walls over and over just like a spider!

I also made him a Pokemon birthday cake. Anyone who knows him right now knows he is what we call, "Pokemon loco!"

(I was quite pleased with the cake. Makes me feel like a regular Martha Stewart--anyone who knows me can just say ha ha!)

On November 23 he lost a front tooth. The other one is now very loose, so he will soon be singing, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!"

Our kids lose teeth really late. Yes, he is 8, and he's only lost 3 teeth.

He had me pull his tooth out, which was the first time I'd done that for one of my kids.

Mountain Man

Last month Brandon grew a beard. There was a beard-growing contest at work to raise money for Toys for Tots, and Brandon put the razor down for 4 weeks. Now we know what his beard looks like:

Kids Are Hard On Things!

In one day recently:

We Survived!

Actually, we more than just survived. I really enjoyed the no TV, no video game thing. When the TV did come back on (oh, there was no hope that it wouldn't!), it was quite a shock to my senses. I had gotten used to the (relative) quiet in our home. The first week was the hardest, with Aidan in particular. He would request to watch a show all the time, and sometimes I really wanted him to!! But he got much better at entertaining himself with toys and books, and I played with him a lot more. I am limiting his TV watching much more than I did before, but I must say it is very nice to put on a show for him while I'm getting Logan down for a nap. We are also limiting video game time and TV for the older boys more, and so far, so good.

Computer time was much harder for me. My laptop is on the kitchen desk, and I found myself wanting to just "check" things all the time! I mostly resisted, and mostly limited myself to being online once a day for e-mail and finances. Mostly. I did realize, however, that computer usage is a serious time-management issue for me, and I need to work on it.

My reader said I missed 296 entries from friends & family during my blogging absence. Yikes! And I'm thinking to myself, "How on earth did I ever think I'd have time to blog?!" But I shall continue to try and carve some time out!

Media Fast

I haven't posted anything for quite awhile! We took a trip to Disneyland (so much fun, and needs its own post), then I had a horrendous bout with allergies and got a bad cold (not so much fun, it won't get its own post). With recovering from the trip and cold, I haven't been much of a blogger lately, though I've looked forward to starting up again. And then...

Sunday in Sacrament meeting, our Bishop challenged the families in the ward to go on a "media fast" for a month. This means no TV, video games, texting, computers, etc. I'm still going to check e-mail and do my finances on the computer, but will try to limit that to once a day. Several people from the ward council had been asked to do this for the month of August, and they spoke and gave their experiences. In some ways, I'm sure it will be very difficult, but in others I'm very much looking forward to it. I won't be blogging this month, but I'll be back!

p.s. I wrote this on Oct 1, then realized I never posted it, so I'm doing it today, Oct. 8.