Notes to Self

• While the red table cloth is much prettier, it shows a million times more of the food crumbs than the ugly cream colored with sundry roosters table cloth.
• I should probably take a valium before grocery shopping with two boys.  It won't stop them from screaming, but it will stop me from caring.
• If one wants snow, the best way to get it is to put away one's winter clothes.
• My house is in a state of entropy.  I should probably stop fighting it.

New Beginnings

I have grand plans of starting my own garden from seed this year.  So, I got my pots ready and placed them next to the only windows that get a decent amount of sun during the day.

I guess it would help if I actually put some seeds in the dirt.  Leaving them on the counter next to the pots hasn't been very effective thus far.

Someone needs to tell me to get my black thumbs in gear and get moving on this!

Happy Birthday Ben!

Better late than never - here is my birthday post for Ben!  Ben turned two last Saturday.  We forgot to mention to him that his birthday was at the end of March, so he took the initiative and started acting like a two-year-old several months back.  But now it is official.  

Ben is our sweet boy who thinks he is already six years old.  He loves his brothers, Ja and Mik-nal-way, but most especially Daddy.  He is very bright and a quick learner, having already learned pretty much everything Michael has to teach him about torturing an older sibling and loving to "read" books just like Josh.

We kept our celebrations small on Saturday as we have a big, combined family birthday party coming up for our boys and two of their cousins next month.   

On Saturday, my creative juices and decorating supplies ran dry, so instead of a Diego cake (Diego is his most favorite cartoon/toy/word in the world) we had a dairy/nut/egg free Blue's Clues cake (Blue coming in a close second with the Backyardigans, but being an infinitely easier cake to make).  Plus the kids enjoyed calling dibs on the cupcakes early in the cake making process.

Sitting with his most favorite person in the world, Ben huffed and he puffed and...

...Jason Ben blew the candles out!

We have a rather tortured history with cake in our little family.  Michael, a child after my own heart, took to baked goods immediately.  And the more chocolate the better!  Josh and Ben, however, approach cake with a great deal of reticence and suspicion.  I have seen both of them eat vegetables with less anguish and drama than eating a dense, moist, chocolate, scrumptious piece of cake.

So, yes, there were tears from our birthday boy when he was confronted with a piece of his cake.

He got over it though.

Until he got to the frosting.  Then there were more tears.

Until we coached him to lick his fingers.  Then, and only then, did he decide once and for all that maybe this birthday cake thing wasn't an attempt to poison him after all.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy!  I guess I should probably stop calling you Baby Ben!

Great Falls

Last summer, my dad, the boys and I went to Great Falls Park with my sister.  It was freakishly hot.  We had a nice time, but I have wanted to go back when the weather was much cooler.  This last weekend was the perfect opportunity.  We went to the temple in the morning (thanks to Dad and Diane for watching the savages) and we, well I really, thought we might as well head over to Great Falls Park since we were close by.  There are waterfalls, rocks to climb on and nice walking paths there.  The boys had a fun time and Ben and I got to work some more on our sunburns.

This was actually phase one of Operation Hike-A-Lot.  I would love to do a lot of hiking this summer.  I suspect that we'll be slowed down by Ben, but I want to develop the habit in the boys now.  Ben actually is a little trooper when it comes to hiking.  Michael is the whiner who complains on the way there, complains the entire time and then tells us afterwards how much fun he had.  Josh does pretty well, just so long as we manage to confiscate any books he has brought along before we get out to hike.

Supermoon!

This was the best picture our little camera could take of the supermoon tonight.  With the moon at perigee - the closest in almost 20 years - we drove to a high spot in town.

And waited.

And waited.

And made the boys run laps.

And climbed a hill.

And waited.

And waited.

And then the large, red moon popped over the horizon.  It was pretty cool.

Play Ball!

It's no use.  We do try to get age-appropriate toys and watch age-appropriate TV shows for Ben.  But mostly Ben wants to be just like his brothers - get what his brothers get and do what his brothers do.

  

Obstinate third child!  

Adorable third child!

The latest craze in the Miller household is baseball.  Jason, Josh and Michael got baseball gloves and balls this Christmas in anticipation of t-ball this Spring.  Well, Jason won't be playing t-ball, but the older boys will be.  Jason and the boys are taking good advantage of our nice weather and throwing baseballs around.  Catching, I expect, will probably come later.  T-ball practice starts next week and the boys are very excited.

Even Ben.  This is how I often find him these days (when he isn't taking all the books off of the bookshelves or shoving small items in the air vents or whining nonstop for food or, well, you get the idea):

He's pretty cute in his diaper with the huge hat, glove and baseballs/tennis balls.

I just don't know if he realizes that he is going to be just a spectator when t-ball season gets started.

Probably not.  But he is definitely getting ready for when his chance comes in a couple of years to play ball.

Where We Were

This is where we were last night.  A wonderful couple we know were being sealed to each other and their children for eternity.

In our church, we believe that families can be eternal units.  We believe that a man and wife married/sealed in the temple will be married for eternity and their children will be sealed to them.  Granted, not everyone chooses to get married in the temple.  But there is always the option of being sealed later.  And if a couple gets sealed later and they have kids, the kids get sealed to them in the temple too.

So there we were, in the temple, so happy for our friends.  They were surrounded by loving friends and family for this occasion.  They were sealed to each other for eternity.  People were teary-eyed and sniffing.  And their 2-year-old daughter was brought in the room in a darling white dress, as dainty as a princess.  Next came their 4-year-old son in a white suit like his dad's with a little boy swagger.  That is when the water works started.  I am not normally a crier, but it was a very touching tableau to see this loving family sealed together for eternity.  It reminded me how precious my own little family is to me and how blessed we are.

Ben's Going to Be the One

We've been to the ER twice so far.

Once for Josh - turns out he is very allergic to pine nuts.

Once for Michael - turns out his arm really was broken.

Both visits were for serious medical issues.

And then we have Ben.  For the past week or so, I have caught him trying to shove raisins in his ears.  This evening, I caught him trying to shove a rather large and rather pink sequin up his nose.  Ben is going to be the one we visit the ER to get some toy or food extracted from some bodily orifice.  Who knows?  He may have actually already gotten something in.  Not the proudest parenting moment in my future, but I am pretty sure in my future nonetheless.

Sign of Spring

Forget the groundhog.  

Forget the cherry blossoms.  

Forget April showers.  

This is how we know Spring is near:

Sweet Dreams

I was at the table eating with the kids.  I looked down.  I saw a roll.  I thought, "Hey, this doesn't have any gluten in it."  I took a bite.  Then I realized, "HEY!  This DOES have gluten in it!"  I ran to the sink and spit it out.  I tried to scrape all the crumbs out of my mouth and tried my hardest not to swallow.  

Then I woke up.  Panicked.  And a little disappointed that the roll in my dream was so dry.  What a waste.

Don't feel too bad for me.  I found a GF baking mix that makes pretty good pancakes and cornbread.  I am excited to try other recipes with it.  Unfortunately, it has dairy in it so Josh and Ben can't have it.  And worse still, we discovered that Jason is allergic to it as well.  That is a bit of a mystery.  There is no perfect food for all of us, apparently.  It does pose a problem in the bread department though.  I am beginning to envy Jack Sprat and his wife - at least they could eat different parts of the same meal.  If I bake with this mix, Jason doesn't get to eat.  If I bake with flour, I don't get to eat.

Jason has been pretty good about this GF diet.  He doesn't necessarily adhere to it closely (unless there are GF chocolate chip peanut butter cookies around - then he is very devoted to this diet), but he is very supportive and tries to avoid gluten around me.  This has meant a big change in our dinner planning and there are far fewer baked goodies being made.  He did, however, tell me that he had a dream that he went to school and there was a table of baked goodies made with gluten:  cakes, breads, brownies etc.  So, I took pity on him and made him these.  

I hope he enjoys them because next time I will make chocolate chip pumpkin bread with the mix and then he can watch me eat it.

On the Mend

We've been sick.  All of us.  Right in a row.  With no break.  

I am thinking of instituting a new rule in our house:  Adults get to get sick first.  That way we recover first (ideally) and are ready to care for the sick kids and entertain the convalescent ones.  We did it the other way around this time.  Not fun.  Josh and Ben were going stir crazy by the time the rest of us just wanted to collapse on any horizontal surface and sleep through as much of the flu as possible.  

TV has been our stalwart friend.  I have heard that kids shouldn't watch more than 2 hours of TV a day.  Well, there was a day or so when there might have been 2 hours that the kids didn't watch TV.

By the end of two weeks, we were mostly well (4 out of 5), but thoroughly sick of spending time inside with each other.  Luckily, Nana came out this weekend and the weather was bordering on nice, so we went for a "hike" in the "woods" on Saturday.  It was a bit windy, but I assumed that once we got in the forest that the trees would block the wind.  I forgot two key facts:  deciduous trees generally have their leaves up high and generally have no leaves in the winter.  

Oh well.  We had a good time and breathed in the fresh air.

Here is our first hike of the year.  Hopefully we'll get a lot more in before summer hits.