Sunday, February 11, 2018

Surgery + January Funnies

You know, I haven't said much about this on the blog because I try to think about my boys as teenagers reading the blog and the level of embarrassment they would feel with the things I share about their lives on the internet, and this is one of those touchy areas. 

I will say no more than Jonah was birthed with a minor defect called hypospadias. Google if you dare. It's not gross per se, but it does involve the nether regions. It is 100% treatable with surgery, so to surgery we did go. 

Here is Jonah tired, starving, about to be sliced open, and still an absolute angel. He's a dream. 
When we went back to see Jonah after surgery, he had 3 nurses (who weren't even his nurses) swooning over him and his adorable, groggy sweetness.
He was a champ!
The evening of his surgery was a little rough, but the day after surgery Jonah hardly even acted uncomfortable. He just went about his life like it was nothing. However, 48 hours after surgery, we had to remove his bandages and that was a sad day. One crummy day was really the worst of it though. He quickly bounced right back to his happy self!
Enough about the nether regions, let's move on to laughing together about the silly things my kids have done.

Eli brought home this spelling test:
I don't have the whole story, but my guess is the teacher told the class to spell "tie," Eli thought, "I don't know how to spell tie," so he went with the closest thing he did know how to spell, "rope."

Carson and Lincoln spent an afternoon mining.
I had been pestering the boys to get their thank you notes written for their Christmas gifts. Eli has been working on his typing in school, so he asked if he could type his thank you notes. Just desperate for him to get any kind of appreciation out to his gifters, I agreed. This is what Eli wrote:

Thanks for the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
To: Grandma and Grandpa
From: Eli

He got it all typed up and printed, and then I reminded him he needed to send a thank you to his other grandparents. He lit up and said, "I can just print the same thing again!"
When his practically identical notes were printed, he noticed a lot of white space on the page, leaving his conscious feeling a touch guilty. He pulled out some of my craft supplies, but just ended up cutting even more corners in his thank you note project. (This time literally.)
Carson and I went on a mommy date to the burger joint I used to work at in high school. Never has he thought I was cooler than in that moment. He then proclaimed he wanted to work at the same place when he grew up.
They won't all fit in the bath for much longer!
My boys have recently discovered "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." One afternoon they were talking about it and I dropped the bombshell that I had diaries just like Greg Heffley. They looked at me with as much longing disbelief as if I had told them I turned into a ninja after they went to bed. They refused to believe I was cool enough to have a real version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I had them on the hook, so I went and grabbed all of my elementary school journals.

When I wrote those journals all those years ago, I envisioned my kids one day reading them. As life brought me boy after boy, I slowly lost hope that they'd ever express any interest in my preteen written ramblings. It was a sweet moment to have my boys enthralled in that part of my life that I had wrongly assumed would be lost on the boy-ness of my kids.
Carson built an impressive fort all by himself for Lincoln and Jonah one morning. 
I was given a crown at the end of a Young Women's lesson one Sunday. I laughed as I accepted it and tried to predict which boy would be bold enough to own the crown. Carson had the most interest, but the overwhelming pink curved his urges to try it on. Lincoln, however, had no reservations.
I came downstairs one morning to find Carson sitting on the kitchen island, waiting to announce, "It looks like a stocking, right, Mom?!?"
Jonah learned how to stand up in his crib. Which means 1) We need to lower his crib, and 2) I've spent most of nap time repeatedly (and gently) knocking him over.
 He's slow to settle down after he gleefully waves at me each time I enter the room to reposition him. Makes it hard to be mad at his persistence. He also insists on throwing his binky over the edge each time he stands up. Cute little stinker!

Winter Escapades

The reason I hate playing Sorry can be summed up in one word: Ben. Sorry was his favorite game when we were growing up. He always insisted we play it, and he NEVER LOST! Carson challenged The Master to a game. I don't remember who won, but I can make a pretty good guess!
After our California escape room experience, you could say it's become a tradition for us to seek out an escape room anytime we find ourselves in the same city as B+H. Becky has a friend who creates basically an escape room in a box, which beautifully accommodated our abundance of children. We locked the kids in the basement while we unlocked box after box of thrilling mystery.
We even did it with 15 minutes to spare. We've still got it!
If you're in the Salt Lake area, you've gotta try Lockbox Mysteries! We loved everything about it!
The next day we hit the slopes...of the golf course. For some sledding!








Next up: skating rink! My boys had never once skated, so they had as much balance as a candlestick in an earthquake, but once they switched over to a more familiar medium--scooters--they had a fabulous time. 



Haley fed us the best pizzas of our lives one night, even offering classes to all the kids who were interested in participating.
My friend demanded she babysit my kids before the month was over as we had watched her kids that month. We took the chance to slip away for a morning at Boondocks -- without our kids! HA! Bonus, they were running a New Year's promotion so the price was half off and there were princesses. Now, now, if you think we shoved innocent, little girls out of the way to get this picture, yes, you are absolutely correct. 
Then we hit up the laser tag arena where I was reminded I am as stealthy as...a candlestick in an earthquake? 
But at least I look cool spazzing around the arena. 
You know, I was really upset when I realized the first tie I made of this collection was way too big to fit any of my boys. Little did I know that extra oversized tie I had lying around would prove to be a tender mercy when Ben offered to join my boys' traditional front porch shot. 
All the moments between our excursions can be wrapped up in this picture:
Ben and Haley got a game for Christmas that took an entire week of our free time to complete, with layers and layers of rules and new parts and changing game boards and disappearing cards and depending on who's playing, a lot of whooping and hollering. (<-- that part was me. It was my default setting when I stopped caring about trying to understand the intricacies of the game.) 
Thanks to Ben and Haley, we ended up having a pretty exciting Christmas break! 

Most Wonderful Tie of the Year

Here's the Christmas card that was much better received than cards of Christmases past. 
Ben and Haley popped in for the week to meet their newest nephew. 
The Christmas Eve party went off without a hitch even though we had just rolled into town an hour and a half before it began!

Before all the guests were even gone, Eli and Carson took it upon themselves to get the night before Christmas preparations in order. As I turned my back to walk someone to the door, they seized the opportunity to steal all the leftover cookies and every available carrot from the fridge to make a plate for our midnight visitor. 
Then they ran up to their bathroom, brushed their teeth, said their prayers, and tucked themselves into bed. Then Jeff and I chased them down, ripped them out of bed, and made them come back downstairs for pictures and a few moments to relish in their excited energy.

After a proper tuck in bed by mom and dad, the boys were the quietest they've ever been going to sleep. I went upstairs to check on them about an hour later and found the once open door now closed. I went in to find Eli sitting straight up in bed, hyped up on adrenaline. "Mom!" He screamed at me, "Close the door! I'm too tempted to go downstairs when it's open."

I obeyed his orders. 
Christmas morning was magical. This was my favorite Christmas yet. The boys were at the perfect ages. 
Jonah snuck into his brothers' stockings for a candy cane or two. 
Batman had his eye out for said thieves. 
I'm sure Ben and Haley enjoyed the chaos of our house full of boys on Christmas morning. We provided a plethora of entertainment.
Time to open presents!


My brother and I loved to play with walkie-talkies growing up. I eagerly passed the memory on to my boys.

The big gift of the year was a Nintendo Switch, so I'll let you guess what we did the rest of Christmas!

Jeff did take brief Nintendo intermissions to play with his new drone. 

He also took an intermission to take care of the Christmas mess, maybe a little too efficiently.
Ben and Haley lured us into their gamer's corner every time the kids were occupied. 
The Christmas miracle of the season was when we somehow managed to scrape together a beautiful Christmas dinner after coming home to a barren fridge following our two-week vacation. 


This is just the start of our Christmas fun! Stay tuned!