How much trouble can one small boy get into in one day?

Quite a bit if you're 2 1/2 and your name is Nathaniel! Only one "incident" got captured by camera, but there were several yesterday. He started the day with what you see here...eating peanut butter in Mommy & Daddy's bed. I'd been making Joshua's lunch and got side tracked with something else. (Having Joshua get the rest of his school stuff together, I think). Anyway, suddenly we realized that Nathaniel was abnormally quiet and nowhere to be found. I walked by our room and saw this...

He'd snagged the peanut butter jar from the table and decided to snack in Mommy's room. My mom laughed - she said that he'd told her he needed more food. Well, I thought he was just dipping in with his fingers...after I took two quick pictures, I grabbed him and the peanut butter from my bed and noticed that no, he wasn't using his fingers - he'd gotten some spoons. Grandma's decorative collector spoons that he loves to play with. He can reach them where they hang in the kitchen thanks to a handy chair.

So then, he tells me he wants a rice cake. I give him a rice cake, finish the lunch and go to get dressed. Next think I know Grandma is telling him to knock it off and pick up his mess. He was standing in front of the heater, breaking pieces of rice cake of and chucking them at his big brother, who was trying to read quietly on the couch while waiting for mom to get ready.

I got a slight break after that, but later found him in the kitchen digging snacks out of a drawer and then pushing a chair over to the counter trying to find his gummie bears from a couple of weeks ago that have been moved to a much more secure place (unless he figures out that if he stands on the counter and opens cupboards he's going to score some candy). Then the kid gates got up and he got mad...too bad bud!

When Grandma came home for lunch, she took the gate down...and we didn't relock the refrigerator...and Nathaniel found a bag with a peeled mandarin orange in it. He sat down at the table with those, squished them all over the table and dumped them on the floor. As I tried to get us out the door to get Joshua, I scooped them up and threw them away. An hour or so later I found that not only did he get juice all over the table, but also all over the floor. He was locked out most of the time we fixed dinner. However, the gate did come down at some point and I found him back in there with a chair pushed over to another counter eating grated cheese that was the topping for dinner that was baking in the oven. Back up went the gate.

Yes, it was a full day for Nathaniel...and Mom too!

Happy Late Valentine's Day

Better late than never, right? Last week there was just too much snow and too much other stuff for me to get around to taking a picture of the boys to send to the grandparents and great-grandparents. Today was a beautiful day, they both happened to be wearing red shirts (that didn't even happen on Valentine's Day!) and Nathaniel agreed that I could take his picture. So we went out to the backyard and I had them sit on the narrow wooden wall that goes in front of the old maple tree (I shouldn't call it old, I vaguely remember when my dad planted it) and took 4 pictures. The last two are my favorite...Joshua was playing too serious in the first one (he told me he was, and I quote, "changing my smile, Mom!") and in the second one they were so cute as they were grinning at each other, but Joshua moved his head as the shutter clicked. Anyway, they're adorable and both look way too old too me...where are my babies going? And grandparents that might read this...your pictures will be in the mail tomorrow or Monday.

Haircut Time

Last week I got my hair cut (sorry, no pictures available). Yesterday it was the boys' turn. I stayed home and let Brian have the "fun" of taking them. Also, we never agree how short to get Nathaniel's hair cut - I like that his hair actually has some body to it (as opposed to Joshua's & mine which is straight straight straight) and like to leave a little length so that it parts (which it does naturally). Joshua's we usually get short.

This is what Brian brought home to me...

Our studious 1st grader

The rambunctious 2 1/2 year old

He did not want me to take his picture until we convinced him that we really needed to so that we could send a picture to Geddy since his mom had sent one of his new haircut last week.

And no, Shadow did NOT get a haircut...though I won't be surprised if Nathaniel tries that one someday! She was just sitting on the monitor trying to be invisible. This was the first time she'd voluntarily got up on it since Mouse died a couple of weeks ago. I'd put her up there a couple of days ago and she'd had a very difficult time adjust her corpulent body on the narrow space. I guess she's figured out her body mass placement now. But she still keeps a wary eye on the lookout for Mouse - she just knows that that tiny powerful other cat is somewhere waiting to jump out and hiss at her. (Mouse weighed maybe 3 pounds on a good day...Shadow tips the scales at 15 pounds).

Twelve Years

Twelve years ago at this time, I was in the Portland, OR airport getting ready for the last of 4 flights that brought me home from my mission in Spain. I'd started my journey the day before with a roughly 8 hour train trip from Cartagena to Barcelona. Then early the morning of the 13th (it was a Thursday I think) I, along with 6 elders, left the mission home and headed to the Barcelona airport where we boarded a plane and flew to London. After a few hours in Heathrow, another elder and I boarded a plane to Seattle. From Seattle we flew to Portland where he was met by his family and I was met by a former companion who lived in Portland and had come home almost a year before. Then I flew alone from Portland to Medford where my family was waiting for me! By the time we drove home, dropped off my grandma and got to our house it was after midnight on the 14th. I'd been travelling close to 30 hours that day (Spain was 9 hours ahead of California) and was exhausted, but so excited to be home.

Our scanner isn't hooked up, and I've found that I haven't scanned many pictures from my mission yet. So here are just a few pictures from my mission:

From my first area, Valencia, where I was from October 1995 to March 1996. When US ships docked, they would often have tours for the public. We loved it because we got to speak with other Americans, enjoy American candy & soda, and we even got to enjoy "real" milk (it didn't come in a box that sat on the shelf). And what was also special was the chance to see our flag.

My second area was Elche...I loved Elche, it was a beautiful city set amid a forest of palms. I was only there from March to July of '96, but remember it well. We would often do contacts in the mercados (open air markets...kind of like farmer's markets) and we saw this man about once a week and he was happy to pose for a picture with me.

My final area was Cartagena where I was at from July 1996 to February 1997. I hadn't wanted to be transferred from Elche one bit, so it took me a little while to adjust to Cartagena. By the time I came home, I'd been there for 7 months and it was very hard to leave. My companion took this picture of me in one of my first few months in Cartagena when we'd gone exploring on our Preparation Day and gone up to a fort or something on one of the many hills surrounding the city.

I loved my mission and my time in Spain. I loved Spain (even eating snails) and someday would love to go back and see if I could find anyone I remember (or anyone that would remember me!) And some days it is almost like those 16 months were a dream. And some days I would so like to go back...to be so in tune with the spiritual aspects of my life and to have so few distractions. But as I start thinking of that, I usually get distracted by Joshua or Nathaniel needing Mommy for something, or Brian and I'm so glad to be where I'm at in my life now and am so grateful for the things that I learned on my mission that helped prepare me for marriage and motherhood. Yes, a mission can prepare one for that!

Joshua's story

Joshua's class has been studying space and planets for the past few weeks. A couple of weeks ago when I subbed in his class they started Space ABC books and I read them a fun story about penpals (one from Earth and one from another planet). Later that week they had to write their own stories I guess...here is Joshua's, complete with illustration. He just needs to remember to use a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence. At least he remembers to put a period at the end of each sentence!

A Gerzonk came to my house. He was small. He was skinny. He had two fat legs. He had three circle bodies. He had four long arms. He had five square heads. He had yellow hair. He cleaned my yard. I felt happy.

Sunday Afternoon in the Park

One Sunday afternoon a few weeks back we took a walk down the hill to the City Park. There's a little playground at it now (there wasn't one there when I was a kid - it was just a park).

There are swings, a play structure with slides and a couple of animals to bounce on...the boys both like the frog!

Grandma & Grandpa even walked down with us...they even swung on the swings!

Nathaniel informed me that there's a "Fawfwa" (ie. Joshua) slide and a "Nan'iel" (Nathaniel) slide. One is big & "scary" for my little 2 1/2 year old, but not at all for my 6 1/2 year old!

Since January brought us NO SNOW (not a good thing for the water supply) and barely any rain, the boys were able to go play at the park quite a few times. They love to walk down to it anytime Mommy or usually Daddy, has time to take them.

Amaryllis

For Christmas, Brian's dad gave us some bulbs. One of them was a huge amaryllis bulb (at least as big as a softball). This is what it looked like at the beginning of January...

This is what it looked like at the beginning of February!

It's absolutely beautiful. The second stalk is starting to open up and bloom now.

Thank you, Dad!