The Hills are Alive: February 2008

Yesterday Ben said to me, "Every time I have a birthday it means you're getting old!" Older yes, but hopefully not too old yet! Although I think Ben is old and he turned 11 today, so I guess age is in the eyes of the beholder.

He woke up yesterday to an early birthday present...no school! The freezing rain had turned all the beautiful puffy snow into hard, crunchy ice. A good day to stay inside and play video games! I think Brittany asked me more times than the boys, "how much longer until the party?" Five o'clock finally came and she skillfully led Ben and his friends through the Harry Potter jelly bean game while we waited for Barr to arrive with the pizza. He then took the boys to see The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Luckily Brittany had been invited to a gymnastics open gym night with a friend, and Brigham had his first successful sleepover away from home. Which meant Brooke and I had the house to ourselves. We spent it watching a home video of Ben's 2nd birthday. Quite a contrast from this year's rocking out to Guitar Hero and staying up until 3:00 in the morning! It's only 6:00 now, so we'll see how long they sleep in. I have a feeling Brittany will "accidentally" wake them up.

I haven't done a Brooke update in a while. Just a reminder that this is like my journal for our kids so I probably give more details and information than the average person is interested in. Feel free to skip down to the pictures if you want! Brooke has made some amazing strides the last few months. It seems like things we have been working on for over a year are finally clicking for her. She goes up stairs now! She still prefers to hold a hand and walk up, but if pressed, she will climb them. We're still working on going down because she doesn't like being on her knees, but it's coming. She has also mastered the little step down to the family room. For 2 years she hasn't had the freedom to go in and out of there until now. I'm still surprised every time she just shows up in the kitchen on her own!

Her communication is coming along really well too. She wants to know a sign for everyone's name. She's even started making up her own if I don't tell her one. When her babysitter came, I asked Brooke how to say "Allison" and she raised her right arm up and down. So that was Allison and she did it all week! She also made one up for her speech therapist and for one of Ben's friends. At Grandma's last month we came up with signs for a lot of her cousins and aunts and uncles. Her bus driver is always saying things like, "Brooke is really hungry today because she keeps putting her hand up to her mouth". I have to tell her she's actually saying "Baby Kate" her cousin. She'll go through a list of 8 or 9 people in a row. I feel bad when I can't remember all of them or can't tell what she's trying to tell me, because I know she knows. Luckily her verbal communication is also improving. She now says "Br" for Brooke and is starting to make a lot of new sounds. Her one for this week is "uh oh". She's starting to use that when I'm trying to get her to say a 2 syllable word, like Brigham. She can tell there's more to it than just "b", but the rest won't come out yet.

She can jump now, unzip her coat half way, take off her backpack and usually get her coat off by herself. She's understanding more simple commands like: go get your boots, let's change your diaper, and it's time to go. She surprised me one day by getting out a spoon and the peanut butter all by herself and handing them to me. She's my daughter alright!

Her sense of humor is really coming out too. She's starting to see the humor in some books and loves to laugh at anything silly...which makes dinner time more like a circus act most night. She also loves to be wrestled. The problem is whenever we're all on the bed together, she thinks it's wrestle time, and we usually have scripture reading on the bed. Those two things usually don't go together very well!

Time to go start the birthday breakfast...

Ben, Conner, Jesse, and Michael seemed to have fun together at Ben's party

Ben's Mario cake

After weeks of hanging on by a thread, Brigham's front tooth finally came out. He was pretty excited!

Brooke's elephant earphones keep her quiet during our Family Night lesson

I was just watching an old home video with Brooke, and I was trying to tell her that the little boy and girl on the TV dancing around and being so cute were Ben and Brittany. It's hard enough for me to believe it, why should I expect her to understand that!

Last weekend brought 2 of our kids 1 year closer to adolescence! Brittany turned 9 on Saturday and Brigham turned 7 on Sunday. There are times when I really wish I could freeze the clock and keep them just the way they are. And then there are other times, like at the dinner table last night, when I said, "Why can't you all just grow up?". That only brought more hysterics, but at least Barr and I were joining in this time!

It was Brigham's year to have a friend party, but he opted to have the family go to Fort Rapids, an indoor water park, instead. No invitations to send out, games to plan, party bags to get together...I was thrilled! It was so bitterly cold that weekend that it was quite a treat to be able to run around in our swim suits. Our kids are the perfect age for a place like that...until bedtime. Brooke isn't used to sharing a bed, or a room, with anyone. Brittany was so looking forward to getting to sleep with her, but there was no sleep happening. We couldn't get her to lie down or leave Brittany alone. I finally swapped places with Brittany but then spent the rest of the night struggling to get Brooke to settle down. She got about 2-3 hours of sleep and then fell asleep again just before 6:00, at which time Brittany came over reminding me how much she had wanted to sleep with Brooke. I had just fallen asleep, and if it wasn't for the fact that it was her birthday that day, I think I would have lost it! Luckily the boys were able to sleep through much of the commotion.

After breakfast we spent some time in the arcade, which to me is just like a mini Las Vegas for kids. Ben and Brittany combined some of their tickets to get Brigham a much wanted strobe light, which of course doesn't work, another reason I hate arcades! Then it was back to the water. All Brooke wanted to do was watch the babies, and I was in enough of a fog, that I didn't mind just watching her watch the babies. Brittany did take me on a few of the slides. The one we affectionately call the toilet bowl was fun, but as far as the racing slides, I don't get the thrill of shooting down a pitch black tunnel with no bearings of where you're going or how long until you get there! I guess that's why we have Dads. They seem to like it as much as the kids.

Before heading home we stopped so Brigham could get a few more birthday fish to add to their tank, and to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for crepes since that was Brittany's birthday breakfast request and they weren't on the buffet that morning. Our original plan had been to go ice skating that night for her birthday, but by the time we got home, we were all too exhausted. Instead we put Brooke to bed at 6:30 and had a quiet movie night.

The next morning (Brigham's actual birthday), Brittany tried to give me a guilt trip that we didn't do anything fun for HER on her birthday. I had to remind her that she had her special day the previous Saturday when I took her out for several hours to go shopping, get her hair cut and her ears pierced. She had been anticipating the ear piercing thing for over a year, but as it got closer and closer to the actual event, her nerves were getting the better of her. Luckily there was quite the crowd at Claire's, and it was their words of encouragement that helped dry her tears and go through with it.

Brittany is like a magnet to people. Her bus driver called me this morning to tell me how she knows she favors her too much and she should probably stop, but she can't. She just loves her! Let me explain. On Friday I drove the kids home from school since I was already there doing the whole cupcake thing. When the bus driver noticed she wasn't on, she called to tell Brittany she left something on the bus so to come down to the bus stop. She then presents her with a stuffed animal, card, and purse filled with candy and has the whole bus sing to her! Of course Brigham is standing there wondering, "What about me? It's my birthday too!". So we had tears and unkind words and Brigham not even wanting to go to the water park. I appreciate the bus driver's kindness, but she obviously doesn't have 2 children! And then Brittany was trying to find room on the fridge to display all of the birthday cards her friends from school had made her and she says, "Wow, look how many people love me!" as she scoots Brigham's one little birthday greeting from the Primary to the very corner. She does try to make things better. She offered Brigham all the candy from the bus driver and then helped me make him a heart shaped pizza Sunday night to let him know we love him. I'm not sure either mattered to him since he's going through a "life isn't fair" stage and nothing we do will change his attitude. It seems like the majority of the time he is grumpy or yelling about something. Poor Brooke is a little scared of him, which hurts his feelings even more. She'll always do the sign for "Brigham" and then make her sad, crying face. I guess I don't want to freeze time for Brigham at the moment. Having him grow up a little is just fine with me!

I guess I should mention Barr and Ben somewhere in this blog! The weekend before, they had a camp out with the scouts. As the temperatures plummeted to single digits, I kept expecting them to return home early, but no. I think their brains were too numb to realize that was an option! All Ben could say about it was "The bacon was disgusting and I was freezing". Barr said none of the boys were even functional the next morning, so just he and one other leader had to get a fire going and cook breakfast for everyone. He lost all feeling in his hands and feet. O.K. I just have to ask Why? It must be a guy thing, because if you have a nice warm bed, why would you choose to sleep outside in the frigid cold? And I know I'm going to keep asking that until all of my kids and husband are out of scouts. That's all for now.