Aaron came!

My long lost brother Aaron I haven't seen in almost 2 years came through Salt Lake for a business tour with BYU Hawaii and got to spend Conference weekend with us.

We only got to see him for about 36 hours but we made the best of it!

Aaron's killin' it here proving his masculine security.

Lunch at Mongolian Stir Fry after hiking to Stewart Falls

As a teenager I wasn't overly excited to find out my parents were expecting a little surprise baby. I was sure a lot of the responsibility was going to be left to me and I thought things were already overwhelming at our house as it was. The fact is I was right. I ended up being very involved with many aspects of Aaron's care. The thing I didn't expect was just how adorable and curious and funny and wonderful he was going to be. Especially knowing what I know now after five babies I swear he was the best baby there ever was. And OH SO CUTE. My gosh he was cute. There was never a bad picture taken of him he was so sweet and smiley and precious. 

He's still the nicest guy you could meet. Everybody who does adores him. Just for fun-- and because he loves to tinker in different things-- he's not only taught himself a lot of the things he has learned about computers by spending a lot of time ripping them apart and building them up again but he's also taught himself to work on cars, make ever-more-elaborate fox costumes for his crazy conventions he goes to, and this summer he spent time chatting it up with the people in Turkey in their language because he studied it before he left (in his spare time between school and working on all the computers at the BYU Hawaii campus.) 

He's rockin' things over on the island right now getting ready to graduate in December and bring happiness and joy to some company out there who is looking for a stellar computer whiz to keep their computers all nice and secure and smoothly working. 

Some people, huh? 

 Peter and Aaron get leaving for the Priesthood Session

A couple of funny things-- 

When he was here I went through his wallet just to see what kinds of things he keeps in there. Among assorted things there was one dollar and this student ID card for BYU Hawaii:

I don't even know what to say to this.

I asked him about some of the free stuff he got from the companies he visited here. Along with the sunglasses and nail polish that change color in the light he got three free t-shirts. 

"Wow, that's pretty good," I said. "You think you'll wear them?"

Only one he said "because the others are ones they would tell you not to wear on What Not To Wear." 

I laughed myself silly on that one thinking of Lily and Linda setting him down to watch that show while trying to get him to dress half-way decent. One thing about Aaron is he is not easy on his clothes. 

When he left I found an almost empty bottle of cologne and this solitary black sock:

You have to know Aaron to understand the significance of this. Linda calls them slugs. He has been wearing black socks for as long as I can remember and they end up everywhere. This is one of the things she has had to learn to live with as his mom. 
He will probably never change, and at this point I'm not about to ask him to.

It happened.

Our Eagle Scout

My camera was being funny-- couldn't seem to get it on the 

right setting-- but here we are!

 Grandma Penny, Nathaniel, Grandpa Nat, Peter & my Grandpa Johnson

Here is Peter leading in the Eagle Charge. Our good friend and Nathaniel's old leader Scott Barnes agreed to be our speaker and was one of the people Nathaniel presented a mentor pin to. I put together a book of Nathaniel's scouting experiences for the display table and Eagle project and if you have the desire you can watch my little seven minute video I made for the occasion here.

Construction signs

All this construction going on in the backyard is about making me crazy.
The noise, the dust, the beeping, the shaking, the crazy drivers, the accidental interruption of our water in the middle of washing my hands-- it is really getting old.

Will doesn't seem to mind. He likes to watch the trucks.

There are obviously lots of things I'm not pleased about living in a construction site but not much I can do about any of it. However, we have construction workers parking all around our houses here and our Nazi mail lady won't deliver the mail if there is a car parked in front of the mailboxes. Sometimes I think the workers just don't even think about it and park there so I thought I'd put out subtle reminder signs, cause you know, that's kinda what I do.

Guess I left the word program up on the computer after I printed out the signs and had a good laugh when I saw that my message had been tampered with:

I immediately assumed it was Nathaniel as he pulls little pranks all the time and this is definitely something I could see him doing. 

Turns out it wasn't him (cue Rebecca's evil laugh.)

This girl cracks me up. 

Her innocent face belies a devious little mind that never stops plotting away.

 Remind you of anyone you know? Heh heh.

The joy of the library

John and I have our struggles but the one thing we have in common is that we both love to read. A trip to our fabulous new library often results in a pile like this:

Believe it or not we will actually end up reading the majority of this pile. It provides a much needed escape from the aforementioned struggles of our lives. There is a young man working there who walks around looking very dapper in his Gap outfits with an iPad he uses to look up books that literally hangs off his neck in some kind of a sling. He not only puts up with John's many book requests but actually encourages it. John talks his ear off and he takes it all in stride. I heard John say to him he had just one more book he was looking for and then he would leave him alone. The man said not to worry, it was his job and John could ask him for as many books as he wanted. 

The heart-melting picture in my mind of me watching them walk away side by side through the library in search of yet another book when we were there on Monday is one that reminds me of why--in the end-- it's all worth it. My gratitude to this wonderful worker at the Springville City Library.

Showering with Will

Silly me thinking I can ever escape to my own private shower.

This is the face that interrupts my shower almost every day. 

Sometimes I protest, but he is growing so fast I often can't refuse him and frequently just let him join in. It prolongs my morning routine but it makes him happy and keeps the floor dry. He's dressed for the day in this blurry picture I took with my phone but you can see he's already wet through from his relentless attempts to get in. Will loves the water and I love my water-baby.

Hitting the wall today

Ever have that feeling you life is moving faster than you can keep up? That is how things are going right about now in our life over here. Peter is busy with either work or school. Really busy. My favorite. Especially now that I officially have a toddler who is moving from the two nap phase to the one nap phase having himself a meltdown nightly just as I'm trying to get dinner ready or homework looked over or finish a phone call. It's inevitable. I know this. I've done it before and I can do it again. It's just that it is on top of so many other things. 

Nathaniel is working a ridiculous amount of hours at the job he started at Taco Bell where he is an official "Food Champion" as seen here on his very important tag:

He's a senior in high school taking three AP classes and up for a scholarship and his boss has been assigning him between fifteen and thirty hours a week. We've made it clear we want him working twenty at the most but over there they've seen that he is a reliable eager beaver and have him working closer to the thirty most weeks. He thinks he's all that cause he's raking in the dough but he's falling behind in his sleep and we are concerned that he actually have some social life his senior year as well as the inevitable reality that he is going to fall behind in his classes. Not to mention there needs to be some time in there to, I don't know, maybe GET READY FOR HIS MISSION. He's so focused on paying for the mission he hasn't realized we'd rather he just be ready for it.

Somethin's gotta give boy.

He listens to us and then says "Sure mom, whatever you say." Then he goes off and does whatever he pleases. 

I am hoping Sarah is reaching her full-blown teenage never-bother-talking-to-me-because-I-already-know-everything peak because it's really getting old. There isn't really much else to say about that.

Rebecca has started junior high and her little brain that is always moving too fast can't always focus on what is actually going on in class as she is too busy imagining things to concentrate which means that by week three she was failing four of her classes. After much work we have get her (mostly) caught up and I have to supervise her homework everyday (which she loves) and keep in constant contact with her teachers. When her computer teacher didn't contact me back via email I met him in his office.

"Are you Mr. -----?"

He looked at me and said with hesitation, "That depends. Are you mad?"

I can only imagine people must look at me as some kind of mom ready to go on a tirade sometimes. I really wasn't mad. I was nice . . . enough.

As I'm going through the list of missing assignments with her teachers at parent/teacher conferences and I am comparing them to my printout all highlighted and marked they will often comment something to this effect:

"So this must keep you pretty busy. Hopefully your others are easier." 

I smile politely because they really don't want to know about John

John. John. John. JOHN. JOHN.

As Lily would say, sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln, this kid is hard.

Doesn't he look cute in this picture?

He is cute. He's funny. Quite funny. He's smart and hears you when you think he doesn't. He never holds a grudge. He's playful and very outgoing. He's sweet and loving and brilliant and creative . . .  and kicks my butt every day of my life. We've been taking him to the University of Utah since the summer when we finally realized the anxiety he deals with isn't going to go away. He's not going to grow out of it, it isn't a phase and it isn't our parenting. Though we have been taking the Parenting With Love & Logic through our school district class to help us cope which has been really, super helpful. Seriously. We are learning amazing things. If they offer this class in your area and you either have kids or work with kids don't wait-- RUN AND TAKE IT NOW. (And by the way, why is this not mandatory for every person to take as soon as they find out they are expecting? It would make the world a whole lot better place.)

I won't go into the particulars of what happens in our house on a daily basis but I will say that some days I can handle it and dole out the empathy and natural consequences like a pro and then there are days like today. Today when I'm pretty sure I'm running on empty and would love nothing more than to get into my car and drive away for an extended vacation. Or just hang in my closet for a few hours in silence. That might work too. At least if I could push "PAUSE" once in a while. Or maybe just "FOR THE LOVE OF PETE SLOW IT DOWN PLEASE."

Then just when I'm at the end of my rope John begins on his I'll-do-my-homework-later or I-won't-act-like-that-for-family-home-evening-again or I-must-take-this-toy-to-school-cause-my-teacher-said or on and I promise I'll do it later, or act better for FHE next time, or won't play with my toy and cause major distractions at school if you only let me (insert privilege here).

We have been waiting for the designated time period to pass to turn in this teacher evaluation form. We have fasted. We have prayed. Last week I had both an email from his teacher informing me of John's uncontrollably distracting behavior in class and had his scout leader show up at my door on the same day. He can't go to primary half the time without either being pulled out of class to sit in the back of sharing time or having his poor long-suffering teachers give up and pull Peter and I out of our classes to sit with him. Will is at the magical age of running about like a demon in the halls but not being able to go to nursery until January. Whenever I give Peter the choice of whether he wants Will or John he always picks Will. Then he ends up out in the church parking lot sitting in the van with Will watching Star Wars. Can't blame him--I'd pick that too.

I drove back to John's doctor in Salt Lake on Monday fully thinking this was going to be the day. No. Instead I'm told the evaluation was not enough. We need to do further testing. Couldn't help myself--I got into the car and cried. Then, even though I probably shouldn't be spending money on eating out, we went for Chinese at the best Chinese place in Utah and I bought home enough for everyone to eat for dinner too.

And that's why today I'm having myself this little pity party. But I must leave now to pick up the kids-- which should be interesting because we had to forcibly take John to school this morning. Now I have to put on my ultra-calm face and pretend like everything is great again so I can be the mom they need me to be. Or at least give my best impression of it, right?