Terrific 3s

Haha.  Not.  This is Henry we're talking about.  He'll be naughty until the day he dies.  But we love him anyway.

Henry's birthday was also three days long. I swear March birthday people just don't know how good they have it.

Day 1: PAR-TAY

While Rex, Alice and Jack were lazar-tagging it up, Henry, Zora and I hit up the bounce house.  Yes, I went too.  Unfortunately, Henry wanted a buddy to play with him and since his usual play mates were playing lazar tag, I got to be the jerk adult playing on the children's bounce house.  At least I had Zora with me to make me not look so mean.  Henry really only played for about half an hour and then he just wanted to be with his siblings.  And get pizza.  Mostly get pizza.  He's always hungry.

He did not want to sit still for a picture.

Day 2: with the big family

As mentioned after the regional conference on Sunday, Greg's family came over for lunch and cake.

Day 3: Rest--for Rex's birthday

Day 4: Henry's birthday!

Opening his birthday outfit in his birthday suit.

Henry has been begging me for months to go to the fire station and look at fire engines.  So, for his birthday, I arranged for us to go look at fire engines.  And he freaked out.  In a bad way.  He made me carry him around to look at every truck.  When the Fire Chief was so brazenly rude as to look exactly like an apostles and to be kind and genuine and try to ask Henry how old he was and then give him a coloring book and sticker and hat, Henry just couldn't take how horrible every one was to him and rolled up in a ball on the floor.  Once we started ignoring him, then Henry finally got up and looked at the engines but by then we'd been there for about 30 minutes and I thought we ought to let our tour guide, who was off duty but kind enough to show us around anyway, go home.  We got back in the car and Henry declared he wasn't done looking at the fire engines.  I felt bad for ruining his birthday and not letting him look at fire engines more.  Then we went to a friend's house to play so I think that made up for it except then he didn't want to leave there because he wanted to play trains more...He really needed a nap but it was his birthday so I just let him watch TV when we got home.

Greg convinced me to let Henry open his presents in the afternoon, instead of after dinner like I normally do, so we could play with them longer.

 Henry is super into Star Wars so Greg got him a Darth Vader mask and matching PJs.

 Every body tried the mask on.  Alice

 Rex

 And finally Henry.

That night it was freezing outside, so Greg grilled some hot dogs that we then ate from the comfort of our house.

Henry requested cupcakes with sprinkles on them for his birthday.

Then we spent the rest of the night playing with toys and I went to bed nearly as exhausted as I am after Christmas.  But birthday week is over for another year now.  And now I'm even done with the blog posts about it. Woot woot.

8 is...super

Rex also had a birthday this week.  He turned 8.  And while we still don't do super big birthday parties, I still regret how we do do birthdays.  We left Rex choose one friend to go do something fun and almost every year, Rex picks Jack.  Now, I love Jack.  He is sweet and well-behaved.  He is kind to my other kids and just about kills Zora with kisses.  However, Jack lives 25 minutes away from us.  And Rex wanted to play lazer tag, 25 minutes in the other direction.  That amounts to a lot of driving.  And gives Rex the typical 3-day March birthday.  People with March birthdays just don't get how privileged they are.

Day 1: Lazer tag with Jack

Rex said it was super fun.  Jack said it was super fun.  Even Alice had a good time, although Greg said she just walked around behind him.  Henry did not have fun.  He really wanted to play lazer tag with the rest of the kids, but he was too little for he, Zora and I played on the bounce house instead. He eventually had a good time, but that's for another post.

Post game pizza

Day 2: Family birthday dinner for all 3 boys

Elder Cook came to town for a 7 stake regional conference so my sister-in-law and her family had to drive down for that so we just had everyone over to our house after for lunch and cake.  Everyone was full and no one died and I think most people had a good time, so I'm calling that a win.

Day 3: Rex's actual birthday

We started the day with some present opening.  Rex got the traditional new outfit, which I bought in February when it was warm and then it got super cold this week so he couldn't actually wear it.  Ok well just not the shorts; he still wore the t-shirt.

Then Greg took him lunch at school and donuts for his class.

When he got home from school, Rex gave himself a birthday present of using one of his homework passes.  He then spent the rest of the afternoon making his own cupcakes because he's a Baker so he should bake.  Get it?  Get it? They were supposed to be Star Wars themed with red and green pretzel light sabers but as it turns out that adding food coloring to almond bark makes it unable to melt.  Did not know that.  We made due with some blue color food mist instead and ended up with blue and white light sabers.   Close enough.

Rex requested QT pizza for dinner.

Then presents.  Mostly board games, as requested.

Cupcakes.

Playing said board games.

Bed.

A few days later, I offered to play Battleship with Rex, which he was really excited about getting.  This is what he did:

We last about 5 minutes.  Apparently the book was more interesting than playing a game with me.  Whateves.  Points for trying.

Greg's Birfdae

Greg turned 32 on March 8.

The problem with Greg's birthday (and Christmas and any other time you want to give him a gift) is that he buys everything he wants for himself.  I'll ask him what he wants.  He gets online to look at stuff.  Tells me what he wants.  And then two days later Amazon magically delivers said thing without me having done anything.  As in, Greg just buys it for himself.

This leaves me in a bind.  I want to show my affection for him by getting him a gift, but he already bought the gift.  It's annoying.

For his birthday, instead of buying him something, I make a nice dinner and throw him a little party.  This year he wanted a Mexican themed party with a piñata and a sombrero.  I got a piñata at Wal-Mart but couldn't find a sombrero and was just going to make him deal with it but then the morning of his birthday, when I hadn't put up the decorations by 8 am he started whining (he later denied this and claims he was just kidding.  The jury's out).  So I spent the morning cutting and chopping to make 2 types of homemade salsa and gently rolling, not stirring, sugar over the stove to make a flan (barf).  After nap time, I arranged for Rex to go to the neighbor's after school and packed the other kids up for the 25 minute drive to the nearest party supply store to get a freaking sombrero.  I was going to get one for everyone but they were $8 a piece, so I got one.  He made fun of me for driving all that way to get a sombrero because he was just kidding.  But he wore it all night anyway.  I think so I didn't kill him.

But the food was, if I can say so myself, delicious.  I made carnitas with lime-cilantro rice, pico de gallo and mango salsa.  And for his cake a flan, which Greg said was perfect.  We all tried it.  Greg ended up eating the whole thing himself.

And now Greg is 32.  He no longer needs the beard to look old.  He is old.

This is what opening presents looks like when you have 4 kids.

Paradoxes of Motherhood

My mind is a revolving door of NO MORE BABIES and GIVE ME ALL THE BABIES lately mixed with a bit of GROW UP and STOP GROWING and CUDDLE ME FOREVER and TOUCH ME ONE MORE TIME AND SEEE WHAT HAPPENS.  It seems like the solutions to all of my problems are the start of new problems.  I want more sleep: have the babies grow up.  But then I have no babies and that's a new problem.  I want a clean house: have the babies grow up.  But then I have no babies.  And having no babies is just...sad.  

People talk about high school being the best time of their lives but we all know that that's a load of manure because if high school was the high point then, well, this life just isn't worth living.  But when real adults (I'm not a real adult yet, I'm not sure what qualifies one as a real adult, but it's not me), talk about their children being babies as the high point, I just might agree.  It's not perfect.  I haven't slept more than 3 hours straight in years, but I also spent two days at the park this week.  And after-babies, as in teenagers, I hear are just horrible.  They may sleep through the night and morning, but they have emotional ranges beyond "I'm mad at him because he drank my soda."  Teenagers have real problems that are hard to solve.  And then the teenagers leave and it's just you.  And while the idea of setting my schedule not according to nap time sounds nice, I really do like nap time and most empty nesters I know just talk about how much they miss having little babies.  

I'm trying to look forward to growing children and making lists. 

Things to look forward to with older children:

1. Family temple trips

2. Reading Harry Potter together

3. Family bike rides longer than 30 minutes

4. Running without a jogging stroller

5....

Ok so I've got 4 things to look forward to as my children age.  I don't really know where this post is going--just shows you that state of mush my mind is in and the chaos inside it--I love having babies but I also like it less than I do other things and it's weird to like and dislike the same thing at the same moment.  I'm not really sure what to do with or call that emotion.

On that confusing note, some pictures of our activities lately

Rex building an obstacle course one warm January day.

Zora got to play on playground equipment for the first time this week and thought it was the best thing ever.

Henry insisted on joining me for my daily nap one day.  Not much napping occurred but I forgave him...eventually.

 Zora learned how to crawl so this is all I see at the park anymore.

 Zora's favorite thing to do is dig in my bag.

 I looked back the other day while driving and saw this: Henry with his underwear on his head.  I have no explanation for this.

Dear Mr. President

I'm not usually very political.  I try to stay below the radar and keep my views to myself.  But Mr. Trump has gone too far and I will not stand silent as human beings suffer.  So I wrote a letters to my Senators and House Representative and even the President himself.  Below is the text of my letter.  Please copy some or all of it and write to your representatives too.  Because humans are suffering and we cannot stand by in our comfortable, heated homes with food and water and watch it happen and still call ourselves decent people.

January 30, 2017

Dear Senator,

I am a stay-at-home mother of four and resident of Charlotte, North Carolina.  I am writing this letter to you as a fellow human being in behalf of the many refugees and immigrants trying to enter our country.  The illustrious Dr. Suess wrote, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”  To apply that to our current situation, I think it’s fair to say, A person’s a person no matter how Syrian or Iranian or Iraqi or Mexican.  People deserve to be treated well simply because they are human.

Our country has a long history of xenophobia despite our invitation to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.  Examples of this range from discrimination against the Irish and Chinese in the nineteenth century to turning back ship loads of Jewish refugees and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.  We look back on these events with guilt and shame that we failed to maintain American values and treat others with respect and dignityπ.  We will feel that same guilt and shame if we do not act to help the refugees and immigrants from any country.  Refugees and immigrants deserve our help because they are human.

I ask you, as president and a human, please, oppose and do whatever is in your power to reverse President Trump’s Executive Order stopping immigration and his Executive Order to build a border wall with Mexico, as both orders promote a profound xenophobia and fail to exhibit American morals of inclusion and acceptance.  Please help reduce human suffering by allowing or even increasing the number of refugees and immigrants to our country.

Thank you,

Heather Baker

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