Here It Is!

The promised “how we’re doing” post. I know you’re all so excited! I am, anyway. I apologize in advance if I brag a little bit too much about my awesome family.

BEN:

• Just got another award at work. He is a very hard worker who knows his stuff and I am super appreciative that his managers at work notice and appreciate him for it!
• Has been gung-ho about our kitchen remodel for weeks now, and I know that not nearly enough would get decided and done if not for his persistence in getting us to figure out what we’re doing.
• Was recently called to Ward Missionary after a long hiatus from having any calling. It’s taken some getting used to, but he’s already having good experiences working with the missionaries around here.
• Is an awesome Dad. He takes care of the kids in the morning so that I can go run and then shower afterwards. As he leaves to go to work we all stand around the window waving and blowing kisses to him as he waves and kisses back until we can’t see him anymore. After that Lily will often say, “He’s a wonderful Daddy.”
• Is amazingly perfect. I’m so lucky.

EMILY:

• Is re-discovering a love for running. I started running last summer and got into a pretty good habit, but near the end of summer fell out of it. One of my new years resolutions was to get back into shape and so I started running again in January. Now I actually look forward to my runs in the morning, and got myself up to 5 miles about a week ago. Not bad, right? I’d like to do a half-marathon early summer, sometime.
• Has realized that the health food craze isn’t all crazy. All of a sudden I find myself looking at labels much more closely than I ever have and putting things back on the shelf more and more. Not sure why it took me so long to come to this conclusion, but I am not a fan of feeding my kids (or myself or Ben for that matter) empty-calorie-crap, ie enriched white flour, high-fructose corn syrup, etc. I still haven’t completely purged our diet of some of those things, but I am starting to realize that I want to fill our bodies with real, healthy food. I’m sure it’s a process, and I’m pleased with the progress I’m making.
• Also recently received a new calling. You’re looking at the new Choir Director. Guess what? Waving your arm around up there is a lot harder than it looks! But I have high hopes and a testimony that this is where I’m supposed to be, and I’m excited to get better at it.
• Is really really really (insert way too many “really”s here) excited about our kitchen remodel! Really! It’s pretty major. Our current kitchen is just way too small, awkwardly designed with very little counter space, and too closed off from the rest of the house. So we’re extending counters, moving every single appliance and also the sink to a different spot, tearing out walls and moving a sliding glass door to a different wall to give us more room to work with. It’s crazy. It’s big. It’s actually really fun, in a stressful, how-do-we-make-all-these-decisions kind of a way. I’ll show you some progress pictures soon.
• Didn’t realize she could write about herself for so long. I do realize I’m not very good at writing about myself in the third person.

LILY:

• Has a seriously unique sense of fashion. And is very strong-willed about it. I’ve pretty much given up trying to influence what she wears aside from what she wears to church. Dresses with sweatpants and mis-matched socks as gloves are extremely common around here.
• Is fascinated with writing and typing her name. She loves to come over to me when I’m on the computer and type her name in huge letters. She then goes on to type all her friends names as well, with me telling her what letter comes next and her finding it on the keyboard.
• Is also getting more interested in reading. It’s very fun to see her recognize certain words, or tell me all the letters in a word and then ask me what it says.
• Emulates her mother in that she can be extremely OCD about certain things. Sometimes, it just has to be PERFECT or she can’t handle it. Writing her name is one of those things. She hates making her L wiggly or when her Y doesn’t turn out right. But she also refuses help. So she sits there crying as I try to tell her that it looks really great and we can take a break and do it later. But then she insists on doing it again and again until it looks the way she wants it to. Oh boy, what can I do to help her with this??
• Really really loves to help in the kitchen. Basically, if I go in there to do something, she’s grabbed the stool and is right next to me ready to help before I’ve even started. She likes to rinse fruit and veggies, likes to hold on to the knife with me (we’re very careful, promise!) while I cut them, wants to stir everything together, dumps all the ingredients herself – really, just about anything that I do, she’s trying to do too. She even helps me crack eggs, and as long as I get a big enough cup out that it doesn’t splash, she’ll scramble them up for me just fine too. Her favorite is still helping me make any kind of dough. She refuses to help with onions though because “the juices are too strong.”
• Her current obsessions: Strawberry Shortcake, playing CandyLand and Memory, her black shoes with the pink stars on them, “Step Time” – taking all the pillows and cushions off the couches and jumping around them, and pretending to be a shark and eating us all up.

MICHAEL:

• Breaks my heart every time I look in those baby blue eyes. He is such a charmer with an extremely ready smile.
• Loves to talk. And is getting really good at it. It is so much fun to hear all the new words he picks up every day. Right now he really likes to describe everything. Little wet. Big jump. Really funny. So Darn Cute! Ok, that last one was mine. He is, though.
• Thinks jumping is the coolest thing ever. He wants to jump all the time, from everything. The bathroom counter after brushing his teeth. The changing table after a diaper change. The stairs as he goes down them. The step stool, just for fun. Jumping games are quite common around here lately. Especially pretending to be a frog.
• Wants to do everything that Lily does. He picks up her pretending games quite well and follows her around all the time.
• Is starting to show interest in going potty. He’s always excited to sit on his little potty, though nothing ever really happens. He’s taken to announcing almost every time he goes in his diaper though. He was running around Sears the other day as Ben and I looked at appliances when he all of a sudden stopped, squatted a moment, and then ran over to me yelling very loudly, “Poo-poo! Poo-poo!” Funny… for everyone else in the store.
• Has a love-hate relationship with dogs. He really wants to love them. He wants to get close to them and pet them and play with them. But half the time when we do, he clings to me, or freaks out at the slightest wag of a tail. But then all the same he fusses when we have to leave the dog behind. Silly boy.

And that’s our family. Hope you like us!