Thankful ABC's

We drove to my brother's house for Thanksgiving this past year, and on the way to help time pass we made a list of things that our family is thankful for.
 Here is the list we came up with:
Annelise, Apples, Aunts, Airplanes, A/C, Alphabet 
BMW, Brakes, Birds, Bruce & Bryce, Bed, BYU
Church, Computers, Crystal, Cars
Dad, Damon Atkinson, Driving, Dolls, Disposable Diapers!
Elevators, Eggs, Elephants, Escalators, Eyes
Four wheelers, Flags, Family, Friends
God, Grapes, Gary, Giggles, Grandpa, Gondolas
Honey, Home, Hitch, Hamburgers
Ionut, Internet, Ice, Icicles
Jesus, Jumpin' Jacks, Julia, Job, Juicer
Kyle, Kitty, Knives, Karate, King size bed!
Lorna, Love, Layettes, life
Mountains, Mail, McDonald's, Mothers
Nature, Nuts, Naps, Natural Gas,
Operations, Owners manuals, Oxygen, Ochi (eyes) Oranges,
Pencils, Pumpkin Pie, Paypal
Quiet, Q&A's, Quanine
Rain, Reading, Redbox, Rootbeer
Sara, Scriptures, Stars, Stores, Sprinklers
Tent Trailer, Trees, Tumbling, Trampoline, Tonic Water
Umbrellas, Underwear, Unlimited Internet access
Violins, Violet
Water, Wyatt, Wainwrights, Writing
X-tra clothes, Xylophone and X-box
You, Yellow, Yo-yo
Zippers, Zebra, Z-pack

Learning to Write

My first grader is loving writing lists and making math books.  He loves to write his own math problems on a legal pad while we are driving in the car, and he is getting good at math!  Today he was writing 10 x 10 =100 100 x 100=1000, etc on our short drive to church. Lying in bed tonight we were making plans for tomorrow. He and his dad had a "fun day" yesterday at a mini golf place, and he wanted to go back tomorrow for Family Night.  I told him "Maybe" and he was concerned because he didn't know what that meant.  Then he suggested a bounce house place as an alternative.  I told him that on Thursdays it only costs $4 per person, so that would be a better day.  He instantly said, "Then we would need $16."

The other night when I got home from work I was presented with a list.  I am not exactly sure what the list was for...I think it started out a menu order and then turned into a grocery or packing list, but I thought it was so cute, written on both sides of a used envelope, that I had to preserve it.

Here is what he wrote:

Garys list

Mom

fun fris

wodr

ornj jos

stak

sop

kis

plat

knif

roobe flot

(*translation -Gary's list for Mom: french fries, water, orange juice, steak, soap, kiss, plate, knife, rootbeer float)

Thankful for Poop

This summer, my cousin who I affectionately call "Caca" (I can't even remember how that started) came to visit and brought his family. Because it is so hot here, we decided to go to a lake that is about an hour away, up a beautiful canyon road. We packed a lunch, made all the kids go potty, and headed off in two vehicles. Not 15 minutes later, my daughter said she had to go potty.
"You just went" I replied.
This daughter of mine is very...persistent when she wants something. Within a minute she started her infamous incessant chanting. As we turned to go up the windy canyon road, her tone got frantic and I asked my husband to pull over. We got out and let her go on the side of the road. Her #1 business turned to a need for #2 and so we squatted a little longer. While we were waiting the idling van started to make a terrible noise. Just as she was finishing her duty, there was a loud clank and the noise stopped. My husband inspected under the hood and found that the wheel from the power steering pump and the serpentine belt had fallen off. How lucky we were to not have been on a blind turn on the narrow winding road out of cell service.
My work gives me a AAA membership with towing. We were right on the edge of cell service, but couldn't get enough of a signal to make the call. We piled all the kids in one car and left the men with the van while we went back to the last city's park and called AAA. While we waited for the tow truck, I called my dad to see if he could call around and find us a part, since it was Saturday afternoon, and our other car needed repaired as well. (Oddly enough Ionut had dropped and broken our power steering pump in that vehicle when he was changing another part). My dad called and Napa said that they had had one, but that morning they had sold it. (Ionut had picked up the part from them that morning for our other car)--they happened to be the same part. He called another place that had one and it was actually cheaper. I raced back to where the men were just in time to show my card to the tow truck (being my membership, I have to be present for the tow to be covered). They towed the van home, and while Ionut fixed it, we let the kids play in the park and eat the lunch we had packed. When he finished, we picked him up and went to a lake that was closer to home. Everything worked out so well. So we were thankful for poop, and for a daddy who can always fix our cars and keep us running :).  I think it was Caca who said, when you pay your tithing you're blessed--it doesn't mean that bad things don't happen, they just happen in good ways.

Little Dancers

Just thought it would be fun to post this little video of the kids dancing to Romanian music. If you can't tell, the one on the left is finger dancing--Like in the beginning of the movie "That Thing You Do".

I am a child of God

We have been blessed with such a good, mild, flexible baby, it has been fun. She is such a little jabberer. She loves to make eye contact and just coo her little heart out.

I got to take her to work with me for a day of meetings, and in order to keep her quiet, I kept a pacifier in her mouth most of the time. When we had a break I tried to feed her but was cut short. On the lunch break I rushed to find a spot to finish feeding her, but she didn't want to eat. Instead she cooed and jabbered for about 20 minutes straight as if to say, "Mom, I have been quiet long enough, now I need to talk!" On several occasions when she wakes up at night to feed, or in the morning, instead of crying she just starts talking.

One of our bedtime routines is to sing I am a child of God.  When trying to get the older two to settle down while I was pregnant I would say, "Let's sing the baby a song".  Usually it was the song, "I am a child of God" which for years has worked to get them to sleep. 

 Several weeks ago we were invited to a loud birthday party, and found ourselves outside a lot to give baby a break from all the noise and help her settle down.  The video is of big sister helping her little sister calm down.

 

 

 

      The other night I fed her and put her in her crib, then got ready for bed.  I turned out the light and she continued to coo, however they seemed longer coos as if she were singing.  Lying in my bed I said to her, "Are you singing?  Do you want to sing a song?"  Then I started singing "I am a Child of God"  She cooed, long coos with me the whole way through the song, just singing along in her own way.  When I finished she let out two more long coos and then went to sleep.  It was such a sweet moment.  Today she cooed along with Ionut singing too.

 In her baby blessing she was told, "You came at this time to bless your family and your brother and sister. "  I belive that is true. She is Gary's happy thoughts!  The first thing he does every morning is run in our room to find her and kiss her.  It doesn't matter what he is doing in the other room, if he hears her, he'll run to take care of her.  He loves to sing to her and usually makes the words up as he goes. Usually they are cute lyrics about how much he loves her.  One time he was singing to her after she had thrown up.  I tuned in to his melody to hear him sing sweetly, "You eat like a little piggy and you stink too".  

    

This Great Deep

I have had several experiences where I felt like the scriptures have been direct answer to prayer, or where inspiration was given through the words, but the most recent was this past week. I was getting ready to return to work from maternity leave feeling overwhelmed with regret of having to leave my baby to work full- time. I decided to get my visiting teaching done before returning to work and picked up the Ensign and read. This month's Ensign is a special edition about the Book of Mormon, and I turned to an article and read,

"Said the Lord, ‘Ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come’ [Ether 2:25].

Those words comforted me and I thought of all of those dear to me who are struggling with major trials right now--my brother Mark's family and their son's recent diagnosis of Leukemia, my friend whose mom with Alzheimers recently didn't recognize her, another dear friend who's recently been diagnosed with Lupus. Other loved ones are dealing with the loss of a job and/or home, having to move far from family, receiving news that they may never have a child or another child, grieving the loss of a child, struggling with addiction. Some are experiencing marriages failing, families being separated, abuse, poor health, etc. It can be overwhelming, and as my mom said to me the other day, It seems like everyone is going through something really hard, and if you don't think they are, you just don't know. The words from that scripture comfort me and reassure me that God knows our struggles. The Savior has crossed this deep before us, He knows how to succor us. God has prepared us against the waves, winds, and floods that SHALL come, our duty is to endure faithfullly, FULL of FAITH as I see so many doing.

My favorite quote on my mission was by Elder Neal A Maxwell

When, in situations of stress, we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacities perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked.

When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and were found equal to our tasks; and therefore, let us continue but with a more determined discipleship.

When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance that God will not overprogram us; he will not press upon us more than we can bear (see D&C 50:40).

It's cute when they don't talk "bery well"

There are some things that I don't want to forget said in their 4 year old way...

• "lellow"
• "I can't say that bery well"
• "just lax mom" (relax)
• "We gotta read scrippers!"
• "Nobody's hugging me" :(
• I miss my grandma in "Mania"
• "Barbie pins"
• "Mushmallows"
• "Mom can we go to 'Old MacDonald's' and get a hamburger?"
• "Mom, how's the baby?" (which started when I was pregnant, and I think it slips still out of habbit.
• "Do it!" (like when someone stops rubbing her back or playing with her hair)
• "Stooop!"
• Every time she greets Grandpa she says "WHAT'S ALL THIS BRU HA HA!" because that's what he would say when he came home to the rowdy house.
• "Mom, is it a hot day, or a cold day, or a warm day?" (when choosing what outfit to wear)
• "This day?"--she'd get confused when I would tell her she could sleep over at grandma's today, she'd be upset that it was only one night when I said "two day" so now she asks, "This day?" then, "One day or two days?"

S- "Where's the peanut butter?"
Me- "On the Counter"
S- "What Counter Counter?" said in her little four year-going-on-13 year old attitude

S- "Mom!" (just checking to make sure I'm there when out of sight)

Me-"What?"
S- ... "I so love you"
Me "I love you more"
S- "Okay, we both win"

"Mom, Go Straight." Which had to be said everytime I left the house. I think it was her way of saying hurry home (as in go straight home after school). Gary told her that was stupid because if I went straight I would run into that house at the end of the road, so she revised it....
"Mom, Go Straight, when you see our house turn, if you don't see our house don't turn. Go straight." She would say it as she hugged me goodbye or run out to the car and tell me every time I'd leave for work. Once or twice she'd forget and then my cell phone would ring as I was driving out of the neighborhood she'd tell me she'd forgot to tell me something....

S- "Mom, can I_____?"
Me-"I don't know"
S- "What do you mean? You're my mother, you know everything!"