I want to give a HUGE shout-out to my mom! Happy Mother's Day!! Thanks for all of the love and support you've provided over all the years! Thank you for all of the life lessons. Thank you for teaching and helping me do what is right. Thank you for instilling in me a love of stories, ice cream and playing games! I wanted to share just a few of my favorite memories I have with my mom.
Potentially the first story I remember of me and my mom was us driving together in the car. I don't know where we were going, but it was in Pennsylvania. We were driving along and I was telling my mom about me and Alex, my imaginary friend, and all the cool things we did. I was telling her about how we'd fight ninjas. While we drove, there was an old, run down building that I could see out my window. I pointed it out to my mom, and said "That's where we fought the ninjas mom!"
My mom started volunteering at my elementary school once I started going. She worked in the copy room and made the copies for all of the teachers. It was nice to have my mom close by, however, I still took the bus to/from school. One time in first grade I got really sad and missed my mom. My teacher let me go see her in the copy room. I am glad she was there to comfort me. Being at school most of the day also made it easy for her to come on field trips!
I also remember in jr. high/high school I'd go grocery shopping with my mom. The big allure here was that after parent teacher conferences if everyone said nice things about me I'd get a bottle of strawberry milk! I'd get a big 32 oz bottle and drink it all before we got home.
My mom fought the powers that be and gifted me a Nintendo 64 for my birthday, potentially the greatest gift I've ever been given. Monica nearly matched this spectacle by gifting me a Nintendo Switch for Christmas a few years back, but she let slip the surprise before Christmas.
When I was in high school, a junior I think, I was playing in a winter indoor lacrosse league. I broke my thumb one night at our game. Fortunately Brad King's parents were there and took me to the ER. My mom came out to get me. That was probably one of the most painful moments of my life, and my mom was there to comfort me. A few months later I knocked the screws that were holding my thumb together loose. I had to have another surgery (I had surgery to screw the bone back together, my dad came to that one) to get the screws taken out. It was early in the morning, like 6 am. When I woke up from surgery we were still able to make it to school on time... yay. So that's where my mom dropped me off.
I also remember when there used to be a Winder Dairy by our house (It eventually became a Chinese restaurant, Ho-ho's gourmet, across the street form Nielson's frozen custard). It was a drive through, and you get get a big cup of soft serve with a sugar cone on top for just $0.25! We had many a fun trip there. Winder Dairy isn't there anymore, but we've kept the tradition alive by taking my mom to Butterfields whenever she comes to visit!
I also remember my mom taking me places I'm sure she had no interest in, link End Zone (it was next to Winder Dairy, so there could have been worse places to go). It was a card game/miniatures/collectibles type store. Our trips mainly revolved around Pokemon cards, and while not exactly my mom's cone of ice cream (instead of cup of tea), she was always willing to go and was even willing to help me with decisions, etc. To the extent you can understand a 10 year old's Pokemon decisions, my mom tried!
I also want to express my gratitude for Monica. I'm grateful for Monica and for all the love and nurturing she provides to our whole household! I'm grateful for her effort and dedication to us and the gospel. She is a great example to our girls, and I am grateful for the example she sets.
Last Sunday, Monica and I were playing Draftosarus and Brooke wasn't have any of going to bed, so she came down to hang out with us. She played with the extra dinosaurs we didn't need for the game while we played. She had a blast, and even stayed up as late as Monica!! She also said she was lining up the dinosaurs to watch the fireworks, but they had to be spaced out from the ones that weren't in their families because they were social distancing! I'm not sure if this is funny or sad....probably some of both.
On the first of Weekday the kids did this in the basement... It might not have all been from that one day, some of it might have carried over from the weekend, but still... They do great playing down their by themselves, and often do without anyone else coming down with them. However, they are not quite as good at cleaning up. I was in the basement working and headed for the bathroom and found the mess. As I was walking through the room I was surprised by Jelly laying there in the middle of the floor! Don't worry, we've since cleaned up. That video is actually Winry vacuuming up cracker crumbs after she flipped the last of the box upside down on the couch, and then it all got dumped on the floor... Her toy vacuum does actually have suction, but not enough to clean that all up. At least she was trying though.
Later in the day we found ourselves in the backyard. Winry jumped and jumped and jumped on the tramp.
And Brooke got out her bear to push on the swing.
On Tuesday, Winry just needed a story and cuddle from mommy! Fortunately Monica was willing! What a pair of cuties. This led to Winry reading me stories while I ate my lunch. We got excited for Jungle Book because the last time she read it she said "In the light of a village, and little tiger lay on a leaf!" That's how the very hungry caterpillar starts, but village is moon and tiger is egg.
That night at dinner, Winry started to spin her fork. She may have seen me do this a time or two before... I'm not going to say I'm a bad example, but I will say there are things I'd rather the kids be doing while "eating" dinner, like eating!
Winry is super content in her crib right now. At night we lay her down and she'll be singing and talking with her stuffed animals for sometimes another 2 hours. She eventually does go to sleep, so it's not a big deal. Not quite as commonly, she does the same in the morning. She's usually happy for 10-15 minutes after waking up, but this past week she was having a heyday in her crib. When I came in her room she was giving her stuffed animals check ups. I asked if she wanted to get up and she said no, so instead I went and got her the doctor toys and put them in the crib with her. I came back up about a half hour later and she was finishing up checkups, and once everyone was healthy she was willing to get out and come downstairs with me for breakfast.
Winry has started working on getting herself dressed/undressed all by herself. She's been working on pants for the last week or so, and she is able to get them on and off all by herself. However, she doesn't worry about forward/backward just quite yet. It's a little more noticeable with something like jeans though. Those back pockets just aren't usually up front! Also, she loves to pull on socks and put on shoes still. So she's currently decently self sufficient at getting dressed from the waist down.
This past week we got a marble run for the girls. They love playing with it, and Brooke is already pretty good at building them and will make one for both her and Winry to put marbles down.
This past week Brooke got her learning to read books/set/thing. She has been sooooo excited for this to come. She wants to learn to read so bad! She's worked on it a few times, and right now I'd say her biggest struggle is connecting letter sounds together. She's always learned the sounds as individual things, and now suddenly she's being told to cram all those sounds together in her mouth! There are a bunch of books and a work book and stuff. The first book just has 4 words in it, and she memorized the words pretty quick. So far she can read a few words pretty well, but is still having a hard time blending sounds together. When she does blend the sounds she's pretty good at reading new words though.
On Friday Brooke had an online call dance class! Winry got suited up and joined her. Brooke continues to LOVE to dance, and she does such a good job too. Winry seems really excited to start her own dance class. She did great following along for the first half-ish of Brooke's class, and then laid down in the middle of the floor and Brooke had to dance around/over her. She also spent a lot of dance class taking on and off her shoes, stealing Brooke's bear that she was supposed to dance with, and asking for snacks! Also, in that video of the girls dancing, when they go to shake their hips, doesn't Winry look super pregnant? Hilarious!
The girls are getting better and better with Jelly all the time. For the most part they do a good job of letting Jelly sniff their hands before trying to pet her, etc. Jelly is warming up to the girls too, and is much more trusting of them/willing to be pet, etc. Winry got to scratch Jelly's chin!
Saturday I got to spend some time working on the sprinkler system. The grass has already gotten pretty brown and crispy this year, so it probably should have been a project a few weeks ago. Anyway, we've been having trouble with our main line in the front yard for about a year. I started working on it last year, but went in to finish the job this year. We cut down our pine tree last year to dig up the lines, but couldn't get everything dug out with the stump still there. I finally pulled out the stump yesterday, and at the very bottom of it I found the sprinkler lines! You can see that the tree pinched it shut! Technically the whole problem was just that small ~6" of pipe, however, I used a pick ax to dig it out, resulting in about 2 and a half feet of ruined pipe... Got it all patched up and the sprinklers are running again! It was a pretty long/tiring day seeing as the stump digging was the follow up activity to my 15 mile run.
This morning while doing our primary call, Winry found a great game to play. She put her water bottle under her dress and then tried to drink out of it! Her dress got very wet, but I'm not sure she got much to drink.
A few minutes after that, Jelly was following a moth around the house. It went out to the very top of the glass door, and maybe climbed into a little crack up there. After watching and waiting for it for several minutes she decided it was time to get a closer look and investigate, so she jumped up on our metal security bar thing! It's only about a half inch wide, but she leaped from the floor, landed right on it, and then stretched out to look for the moth. She didn't find anything and jumped back down. It was pretty hilarious though!
Those are all the adventures I have for now. Have a wonderful week!
Potentially the first story I remember of me and my mom was us driving together in the car. I don't know where we were going, but it was in Pennsylvania. We were driving along and I was telling my mom about me and Alex, my imaginary friend, and all the cool things we did. I was telling her about how we'd fight ninjas. While we drove, there was an old, run down building that I could see out my window. I pointed it out to my mom, and said "That's where we fought the ninjas mom!"
My mom started volunteering at my elementary school once I started going. She worked in the copy room and made the copies for all of the teachers. It was nice to have my mom close by, however, I still took the bus to/from school. One time in first grade I got really sad and missed my mom. My teacher let me go see her in the copy room. I am glad she was there to comfort me. Being at school most of the day also made it easy for her to come on field trips!
I also remember in jr. high/high school I'd go grocery shopping with my mom. The big allure here was that after parent teacher conferences if everyone said nice things about me I'd get a bottle of strawberry milk! I'd get a big 32 oz bottle and drink it all before we got home.
My mom fought the powers that be and gifted me a Nintendo 64 for my birthday, potentially the greatest gift I've ever been given. Monica nearly matched this spectacle by gifting me a Nintendo Switch for Christmas a few years back, but she let slip the surprise before Christmas.
When I was in high school, a junior I think, I was playing in a winter indoor lacrosse league. I broke my thumb one night at our game. Fortunately Brad King's parents were there and took me to the ER. My mom came out to get me. That was probably one of the most painful moments of my life, and my mom was there to comfort me. A few months later I knocked the screws that were holding my thumb together loose. I had to have another surgery (I had surgery to screw the bone back together, my dad came to that one) to get the screws taken out. It was early in the morning, like 6 am. When I woke up from surgery we were still able to make it to school on time... yay. So that's where my mom dropped me off.
I also remember when there used to be a Winder Dairy by our house (It eventually became a Chinese restaurant, Ho-ho's gourmet, across the street form Nielson's frozen custard). It was a drive through, and you get get a big cup of soft serve with a sugar cone on top for just $0.25! We had many a fun trip there. Winder Dairy isn't there anymore, but we've kept the tradition alive by taking my mom to Butterfields whenever she comes to visit!
I also remember my mom taking me places I'm sure she had no interest in, link End Zone (it was next to Winder Dairy, so there could have been worse places to go). It was a card game/miniatures/collectibles type store. Our trips mainly revolved around Pokemon cards, and while not exactly my mom's cone of ice cream (instead of cup of tea), she was always willing to go and was even willing to help me with decisions, etc. To the extent you can understand a 10 year old's Pokemon decisions, my mom tried!
I also want to express my gratitude for Monica. I'm grateful for Monica and for all the love and nurturing she provides to our whole household! I'm grateful for her effort and dedication to us and the gospel. She is a great example to our girls, and I am grateful for the example she sets.
Last Sunday, Monica and I were playing Draftosarus and Brooke wasn't have any of going to bed, so she came down to hang out with us. She played with the extra dinosaurs we didn't need for the game while we played. She had a blast, and even stayed up as late as Monica!! She also said she was lining up the dinosaurs to watch the fireworks, but they had to be spaced out from the ones that weren't in their families because they were social distancing! I'm not sure if this is funny or sad....probably some of both.
On the first of Weekday the kids did this in the basement... It might not have all been from that one day, some of it might have carried over from the weekend, but still... They do great playing down their by themselves, and often do without anyone else coming down with them. However, they are not quite as good at cleaning up. I was in the basement working and headed for the bathroom and found the mess. As I was walking through the room I was surprised by Jelly laying there in the middle of the floor! Don't worry, we've since cleaned up. That video is actually Winry vacuuming up cracker crumbs after she flipped the last of the box upside down on the couch, and then it all got dumped on the floor... Her toy vacuum does actually have suction, but not enough to clean that all up. At least she was trying though.
Later in the day we found ourselves in the backyard. Winry jumped and jumped and jumped on the tramp.
And Brooke got out her bear to push on the swing.
On Tuesday, Winry just needed a story and cuddle from mommy! Fortunately Monica was willing! What a pair of cuties. This led to Winry reading me stories while I ate my lunch. We got excited for Jungle Book because the last time she read it she said "In the light of a village, and little tiger lay on a leaf!" That's how the very hungry caterpillar starts, but village is moon and tiger is egg.
That night at dinner, Winry started to spin her fork. She may have seen me do this a time or two before... I'm not going to say I'm a bad example, but I will say there are things I'd rather the kids be doing while "eating" dinner, like eating!
Winry is super content in her crib right now. At night we lay her down and she'll be singing and talking with her stuffed animals for sometimes another 2 hours. She eventually does go to sleep, so it's not a big deal. Not quite as commonly, she does the same in the morning. She's usually happy for 10-15 minutes after waking up, but this past week she was having a heyday in her crib. When I came in her room she was giving her stuffed animals check ups. I asked if she wanted to get up and she said no, so instead I went and got her the doctor toys and put them in the crib with her. I came back up about a half hour later and she was finishing up checkups, and once everyone was healthy she was willing to get out and come downstairs with me for breakfast.
Winry has started working on getting herself dressed/undressed all by herself. She's been working on pants for the last week or so, and she is able to get them on and off all by herself. However, she doesn't worry about forward/backward just quite yet. It's a little more noticeable with something like jeans though. Those back pockets just aren't usually up front! Also, she loves to pull on socks and put on shoes still. So she's currently decently self sufficient at getting dressed from the waist down.
This past week we got a marble run for the girls. They love playing with it, and Brooke is already pretty good at building them and will make one for both her and Winry to put marbles down.
This past week Brooke got her learning to read books/set/thing. She has been sooooo excited for this to come. She wants to learn to read so bad! She's worked on it a few times, and right now I'd say her biggest struggle is connecting letter sounds together. She's always learned the sounds as individual things, and now suddenly she's being told to cram all those sounds together in her mouth! There are a bunch of books and a work book and stuff. The first book just has 4 words in it, and she memorized the words pretty quick. So far she can read a few words pretty well, but is still having a hard time blending sounds together. When she does blend the sounds she's pretty good at reading new words though.
On Friday Brooke had an online call dance class! Winry got suited up and joined her. Brooke continues to LOVE to dance, and she does such a good job too. Winry seems really excited to start her own dance class. She did great following along for the first half-ish of Brooke's class, and then laid down in the middle of the floor and Brooke had to dance around/over her. She also spent a lot of dance class taking on and off her shoes, stealing Brooke's bear that she was supposed to dance with, and asking for snacks! Also, in that video of the girls dancing, when they go to shake their hips, doesn't Winry look super pregnant? Hilarious!
The girls are getting better and better with Jelly all the time. For the most part they do a good job of letting Jelly sniff their hands before trying to pet her, etc. Jelly is warming up to the girls too, and is much more trusting of them/willing to be pet, etc. Winry got to scratch Jelly's chin!
Saturday I got to spend some time working on the sprinkler system. The grass has already gotten pretty brown and crispy this year, so it probably should have been a project a few weeks ago. Anyway, we've been having trouble with our main line in the front yard for about a year. I started working on it last year, but went in to finish the job this year. We cut down our pine tree last year to dig up the lines, but couldn't get everything dug out with the stump still there. I finally pulled out the stump yesterday, and at the very bottom of it I found the sprinkler lines! You can see that the tree pinched it shut! Technically the whole problem was just that small ~6" of pipe, however, I used a pick ax to dig it out, resulting in about 2 and a half feet of ruined pipe... Got it all patched up and the sprinklers are running again! It was a pretty long/tiring day seeing as the stump digging was the follow up activity to my 15 mile run.
This morning while doing our primary call, Winry found a great game to play. She put her water bottle under her dress and then tried to drink out of it! Her dress got very wet, but I'm not sure she got much to drink.
A few minutes after that, Jelly was following a moth around the house. It went out to the very top of the glass door, and maybe climbed into a little crack up there. After watching and waiting for it for several minutes she decided it was time to get a closer look and investigate, so she jumped up on our metal security bar thing! It's only about a half inch wide, but she leaped from the floor, landed right on it, and then stretched out to look for the moth. She didn't find anything and jumped back down. It was pretty hilarious though!
Those are all the adventures I have for now. Have a wonderful week!
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