June 24, 2006

Hey y'all,
Been rrreeeaaalllyyy busy around here, hence not so many emails... I'm looking FORWARD to my vacation next week!!
Things have been good, though, just busy.

The biggest thing was having Naomi here for a few days. It was so fun! Gosh, I wish she lived close by. The boys absolutely fell in love with her, and I'm quite sure they wish she was their mom. She got up with them every morning and let me sleep in, she read books to them, took them on walks, took them to the park, told them stories, made them snacks, brought them presents, and basically proved herself as their favorite aunt. We did some fun things while she was here, including going to Butterfly World, South Beach, and the pool. She got stranded at the pool with all 3 boys for about 6 hours on Tuesday, though, which probably wasn't so fun for her. Here is the story of that adventure:

I went to Kylie Clark's house to take pictures of her 4 day old baby (I did her maternity portraits), and it was supposed to be a 2-2.5 hour thing tops. So Naomi said she would take the boys to the pool while I went to her house. I dropped them off at the Embassy Lakes pool, and then headed up to the Clark's apartment. On the way, I remembered that I had also volunteered to bring dinner (oops!), so I stopped by real quick at Publix to get some food. I ran in and picked up a roasted chicken, potato salad, fruit, green salad, and a strawberry shortcake. I brought the groceries back to the van, climbed in, started the van, and it ran for about 30 seconds while I got my seatbelt on, turned on the A/C, etc., and then it just died. And just clicked when I tried to start it up again. Ugh. I figured it was the battery, so I called Lance Clark (Kylie's husband) and told him I needed a jump, and he nicely drove down to help me up. He jumped the van and it started up just fine, but when I got back out of the car to disconnect the cables, it died again. We figured out I had to keep revving the gas in order for it not to die, so after I got jumped again, I revved the engine and Lance disconnected the cables and closed the hood. Anyway, I managed to make it to their apartment, putting the car in park and revving the engine at red lights and stop signs. The pictures went really well. 4 days old seems to be just perfect for newborn pictures. She was tiny and sleepy and I could put her down and move her in different positions, and she would settle right down with her binky, and then allow us to take the binky out for the pictures. Anyway, the pictures themselves took about
2.5 hours including setting up, break for nursing, cleaning up. They have an east-facing balcony on the 6th floor, so the light was very nice. I had to get jumped again to leave, but I made it all the way back to Embassy Lakes without a hitch, until I got to the security gate. You have to stop and show ID to the security guard, and you have to be on someone's guest list. So I was sitting there revving my engine in park while she checked me out, and just as I put the van into drive, it died. Ugh!! And I couldnt' find my phone!!! (turns out I had dropped it in the parking lot at Kylie's house, and I found it a couple days later). Anyway, the security guard called my friend Janette who lives in Embassy Lakes, and thank goodness she was there because she was on her way out. So she drove over in her van (meanwhile the cars were piling up behind me and I had to keep explaining that my car was dead and they'd have to go around me) and got out her brand-new jumper cables that she got with her brand-new battery just the week before. We connected the vans and I tried to start the van, but this time NOTHING. Not even a click. I got out again and noticed smoking from my battery. Uh oh. I grabbed the positive cable and pulled it off, only to discover it was BURNING HOT. I burned a nice blister on my thumb. The cable had actually melted right down to the wires. The negative cable was just as hot and I had to hit it with my closed fist to get it disconnected. We had no idea what happened, and it was really scary. I was about to give up to call a tow truck (of course Ben was not available either, he was at a work dinner) when this guy drove up in his car, acting like he knew what he was doing. He thought maybe the cables weren't the correct guage, and got his cables out. He started hooking them up, and just as he was about to hook the negative cable to Janette's battery, I noticed that what we thought was the positive terminal, was actually marked negative!! Can you believe that the negative terminal on this brand-new battery was actually painted RED????? The plastic covers on both terminals were black, and the metal part of the terminal was red. Thankfully I saw the TINY engraved "-" sign just as the guy was about to connect Janette's negative terminal to my positive terminal, which was exactly what we had done. Very scary. Anyway, we connected it right, but the van turned over just once, and wouldnt' start. Finally we gave up and the guy and his son pushed my van over to a small parking area next to the security gate. Janette drove me over to the pool, and Naomi and the boys all crammed into the van (10 of us in a 7 passenger van), and she drove us home. I felt so bad because while I was stranded at the security gate, I couldn't call Naomi because my phone was back at Kylie's!! Poor Naomi.

So, that was that adventure. The next day Ben was working from home, so we took his truck to Sam's and got a new battery and now the van runs great except I think we blew a fuse or two with the battery fiasco because none of the things on the dash work (speedometer, gear indicator lights, radio, etc.). Hopefully I can figure out how to replace those myself.

Now for some stories of the boys:

Mosey is in this fixation stage where he gets fixated on different things for a few days and then moves on to something else. For instance right now he is obsessed with Blues Clues. We have 3 Blues Clues video tapes and that is ALL he wants to watch. If you try to put on anything else, he will throw a fit yelling "I wanna watch Blues Clues!!" It is very cute listening to him while he is watching it, though, because he gets very into the show, shouting out, "A clue! A clue!!" and laughing hysterically at all of Steve's antics (yes, the tapes have the original Blues Clues Steve). He is also obsessed with various items that he must carry around at all times. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday these items included a bear backpack, an alligator packpack, a stuffed lion, a stuffed horse, and a comb. Yes, a comb. He HAD to carry all these things around with him EVERYWHERE. When we went to Butterfly World, I let him carry only the 2 backpacks, and he threw a very long fit and then pouted for quite a while before getting interested in the butterflies. Then the past couple of days it has been the Lincoln Log accessories-- the horse, cow, bull, gate, roof, chimney, etc. These are a little cumbersome for him to carry around all at once, but he does his very best.

Potty training is going ok with him. Yesterday was a particularly bad day for accidents-- I sort of think he was doing it on purpose-- but today was much better. I'm having second thoughts that I started this too early with him, but we've come this far and I really don't want to go back to putting diapers on him.

Ok, now for the big boys. They are up to their usual tricks, playing a lot, fighting sometimes, wearing me out all the time. Brigham is just the master at building things. He just has to be building something all the time. If it isn't a "rocketship) made from an overturned chair, a tupperware storage box (toys dumped out of it of course), 4 bricks brought in from outside, a step-stool, a wooden rocking horse, a length of PVC pipe, and a piece of foamboard for the door (I'm looking at it right now next to my computer desk), then it is a car race track made from about 10 bowls and cups he fished out of the dishwasher and stacked on top of each other in various arrangements, and then leaning rulers from one level to the next for his hotwheels car to "race" down. Oh, this particular construction also required 3 long nails, which he instructed me to get for him from the garage. Not sure what the nails were for, but apparently they were quite vital to his race track.

Joseph loved the things Naomi made for him to eat, and has been requesting apple wheels and stars and peanut butter and raisin sandwiches for every meal. He was also totally thrilled to discover a book on "Colorful Chameleons" among a bag of books a friend gave to us after she reorganized her son's room. He can now tell you just about everything about chameleons, and I had to conduct intense negotiations between him and Brigham on the way home from the airport yesterday, over who got to hold and look at the chameleon book. He also asked me an interesting question while we were at Kmart yesterday getting a new set of jumper cables for Janette. We were walking toward the checkout aisle and he said, "Mom, what's a testimony?" I love it when they ask questions like this and I can teach them something I feel is meaningful. I told him that your testimony is everything that you know to be true about Jesus, the plan of salvation, and the church. I told him that when we think about the things we really believe, and tell those things to others, it helps them to believe those things too, and it also builds our own faith. I'm not sure what the other Kmart shoppers thought about this conversation.

Ben has been interviewing with this other company I mentioned last week, and they are very interested in him (surprise, surprise...), but he seems to be getting increasingly less interested. I'm not sure how this will turn out, but I'm trying not to get anxious over it. I'm sure he'll make the right decision.

Ok, a couple things about myself-- I'm still feeling good, I'm so happy! But I'm still hanging on to these 5 pounds, which is probably more than 5 lbs since I haven't been working out and I can tell I've lost muscle mass, and since muscle weighs more than fat, I'm pretty sure I've gained more than 5 lbs of fat. I've been trying to watch my eating recently, but I think it's really going to take getting back to working out. And as soon as I have these few projects that have been pililng up on me, I am going to make that a priority!!

I will leave you with a few examples of what has been keeping me so busy.