done done done done done...

pace is sick with a cold and hacking cough, so we've been hanging out lounging all day for the past couple of days.  too bad--it feels like spring outside!  so while the boys have been busy watching the magic school bus and bill nye science guy, i've been busy finishing max's painting.  this project dragged on a LONG time, so in part i dreaded doing it, just because it kept. on. going.  on the other hand, though, it's been really fun to work on it while the boys are old enough to see what i'm doing and participate.  max will walk over and point at the animals he knows and makes the animal sound, and then try and repeat the name of the animal when i tell him what it is.  pace will come over and cuddle on my lap to watch me paint, and ask questions about what i'm painting.  yesterday while i was painting max toddled over to my paint basket and started pulling out all the paint tubes, naming the colors!  then pace joined in, matching up the big and small tubes of the same colors, "look, mom (hack, hack, hack), i did a match!"  

noah's ark faux stained-glass: finished.

some more practice

pace tells me he likes drawing "squiggly letters".  when we are practicing letters, i try and describe how to write them related with things he knows.  for the letter "c", i tell him it's a half moon.  i love how he drew his "c" like a half moon, hanging crookedly in the starry sky.  i also love how he draws his "e's", like tall telephone polls with lots and lots of cross lines, not just the three the "e" has. 

here we are on sunday, doing our "passport activity".  with 1pm church, there's no reason to get out of pjs until after naps and into church clothes, right?!  when we get a new friend in the mail, we use the time before church to do the "passport pages" and glue his sticker into his passport.  david and pace looked up victoria falls after reading the zimbabwe article.  max played rumble tumble.

we're in trouble...

two stools, but only one sink.  and only one faucet.  result:  lots of squawks.

elder ballard

elder ballard came to our stake conference in january; i thought it important to record our thoughts and impressions here.  

“An 'apostle' is an ordained leader in the Melchizedek Priesthood in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Apostles are chosen through inspiration by the President of the Church, sustained by the general membership of the Church, and ordained by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles by the laying on of hands. . . . In addition to serving as witnesses of Jesus Christ to all the world (D&C 107:23), as Jesus' apostles did, members of the current Quorum of the Twelve Apostles hold the keys of the priesthood--that is, the rights of presidency (D&C 107:35; cf. 124:128)” (Encyclopedia of Mormonism [1992], 1:59-60).  

or, as we tell pace, an apostle is a special friend to jesus.

first, we were lightened by his humor.  you typically only see apostles speaking at general conference, in a much more formal setting, giving their talk across the pulpit, done.  it was a much lighter experience at our stake conference!  elder ballard told lots of jokes, some very funny stories, and the general feeling was simply laid back and relaxed.  he even said a number of times, "just relax.  just relax and be yourself.  in your prayers, relax and talk to your heavenly father about helping you."

he then changed the subject to more serious things: 

"we, as apostles, as brethren, are bound by what heavenly father dictates.  he has not changed the charge to multiply and replenish the earth.  he has not changed to law of chastity.  we are bound by the doctrine of the gospel of christ."  

"in the future unless the world repents and people stop pushing our father in heaven and the lord jesus christ out of the public square...as long as it goes that way--and it's in a trend going that way--we better have our spiritual houses in order, we better have our spiritual well-beings prosperous enough so that we can withstand.  there will be a time by the lord's declaration when he will say it is enough."

and then just like that, the spirit changed from light-hearted to serious.  the spirit immediately changed into a deep, profound, knowing sense, confirming his words and his calling in the church.  the portuguese word  "âmago"  flew into my mind--it is a noun meaning "heart, core, essence, bottom, pith, marrow" (the 3 references in the book of mormon it's found: helaman 5:30 (a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it did pierce even to the very soul); 1 nephi 16:2 (the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center); 3 nephi 11:3 (it did pierce them to the very soul and did cause their hearts to burn).  

in that instant i knew, deep in my heart, my core, my marrow, that elder ballard was speaking as an apostle called of god, as a special witness of jesus christ.  in that instant i knew jesus is the christ, our savior.  in that instant i knew how important it was to be on the lord's side.

he ended the meeting by pronouncing an apostolic blessing upon us:
"I ask the Lord to bless you that your spirits will be strong, that your testimonies and your conversion will not be in the mind but in the heart deep enough that it will carry you through whatever lies ahead...that you will have the spiritual inner strength to be able to withstand and move you forward."

just sayin'...

i've gotta jot these down before i forget...

• max is starting to become much more verbal, but for whatever reason, he has decided to stick to just one sound within the word (more often than not the last sound/syllable)!  so...you have to know by what he's talking about by what he's pointing to with the sound...
• "ck" = truck, duck, park, black, stuck, stick, walk, milk, etc...(if he's riding in the stroller or i'm carrying him and he wants to walk, he'll point to the ground and say, "ck, ck, ck", and then try to wiggle out of my arms)
• "ee" = please, cheese, squeeze (when he's does squeeze, he squeezes his little hands into fists and makes a face like it's taking a lot of effort)
• when we're at the park, "eye" = slide, "ing" = swing
• he's got most of the colors down: "wehwoh", "bew", "eeeen", " 'ead", "pupoh", "ooowwwn"
• he's practicing opposites: "up, own"; "hut, ooohooohooohoo (while shivering for cold)"
• "et" = blanket "ginkie" = binkie (he'll walk around the house with his arms in the where/what is it position saying "et? ginkie? et? ginkie?", and once he retrieves said items he happily trails his "et" behind him like linus from charlie brown)
• "et" is also chocolate...ha ha...
• he has amazingly turned "yeah" into about five syllables.  "yyyeeeeeeaaaw!" with the little intonations in his voice to match.  
• this week he has added on:  "ock" = sock, "uck" = truck, "own" = down, and for the first time he said "ace" = pace!  if i try and get him to say the word, he'll usually repeat me: if i say "let's go get the mail", he responds by nodding his head up and down and saying "ail".  

• the other night we were playing in the car (family activity #1...go sit in the car without keys and let the boys push all the buttons until their heart's content...there have been quite a few times we'll go to run errands and i'll turn on the car and the windshield wipers will start wiping like mad, the radio is blaring, and the ac will be on while it's 30 degrees outside...anyway, back to the story) and pace gave me the most mischievous grin while holding his finger over a button on the jeep ceiling and said, "want see the whole world?" he then proceeded to push said button, and the garage door opened.  pace the put his hand out like he was displaying a work of art and said, "see?  here it is!"  i almost expected to see more than our driveway, the ken garff car lot with lights on next to us, and neighbor's garage door in front of us.  
• we've been enjoying some very mild weather, and have been spending at least 2-3 hours outside coatless every day!  pace will get on his bike and i'll put max in the jogger and we'll head over to the park and play for a while.  on the way back from the park one day, pace said, "muh, want race?"  so we counted down and took off.  we were in the church parking lot about to go through the fence back to our house when pace suddenly slowed down and leaned over his handle bars.  when i caught up to him he started pretending like he was breathing real hard and said, "phew!  i'm out of fuel!"  i played along and said, "phew!  i'm pretty tired, too, pace!" then he flashed that mischievous grin again and took off through the fence, saying, "i'm going to win!"  little stinker!

max loves puzzles!

max's favorite pasttime is doing puzzles on my kindle.  i found a free app with truck and train puzzles, and the second he sees my kindle he says, "doo-doo" (choo choo).  this particular app has a clapping sound when you place a puzzle piece correctly, and max loves clapping along and saying "yay", and throwing his arms up in the air.  the puzzle has a cork-board looking base with an outline of the puzzle shapes, and then the pieces are colorful trains, trucks, or airplanes.  max places all the pieces just so--he looks and examines ever piece until he knows it's the right piece for that spot.  the kindle lets you put a piece at least in the general area, and then it'll slide in, but max places everything very carefully and exactly (still left-handed!)!  then when you complete the puzzle, balloons fly across the screen and you can pop them.  pace is obsessed with popping every single balloon before they fly off; max loves just watching them fly, and on occasion he'll pop one or two with a little "pop!" exclamation.  i am surprised at how quickly he caught on to puzzling, and how much he LOVES it!

winter wonderland

david's been doing some winter adventures early saturday mornings before we wake up.  sometimes he's running, sometimes biking, and sometimes cross country skiing!

valentine's hearts

last year when i hung up our valentine's day hearts, pace said "hearts say yub-bew!" this year, i asked pace if hearts say "i love you" and he very seriously replied, "no, mama, hearts say pump blood."

number train, painting, and pace's name!

with cold weather outside we're keeping busy inside with lots of projects, activity boxes, and abc's and 123's.  here we're doing numbers 1-10, and building the number train. 

we were experimenting mixing colors for a while, and then i decided to draw some dotted-line drawings, and see if pace could trace the lines and guess what he was painting.  he guessed "house" pretty quick!

we love the activity boxes from uncle jon erik!  we made a cow paper bag puppet and a play dough leg creature...

another favorite: window markers.  so much fun to play dictionary while drawing on the window.  on this particular day, i even got pace to write his name!  we wrote it together first, me holding his hand and writing the letters, and then he wrote all by himself next to it!

daddy does bedtime