Wow.

We had a near miss with the van last week. Jeffrey came out and hid under the van as I was rushing to leave somewhere. I heard his voice but couldn't see him. I had one of those times when I knew I better stop and check things out. Sure enough, Jeffrey hopped out from under the van with his big smile. I had to go but took him inside and asked Rich to help him understand why that was so dangerous. Rich used the analogy of what happens when you step on a grape, which is a good one for a 4 year old. Graphic, I know, but I believe it sobered him into listening. When I knelt down to say my prayer that night, the realization of what might have happened really hit me. I felt so grateful for that still, small voice that told me to stop, and also that I listened. So many times I question my feelings. So many times I just plow forward with what I was doing, anyway. I suppose I listened because I knew it had to do with one of my children. That's a whole different thing, isn't it? Or maybe it was stronger this time. I am just so grateful that, in this challenging and fast-paced endeavor of raising this family, we are not on our own.

Count your many blessings

We were sick in some way or another since before Thanksgiving. Now we are finally well. Being sick that long has made me unusually grateful to feel good again! Here are some other things I am grateful for:

• My children are all safe and well (see above post).
• Our insurance benefits begin tomorrow! Hooray!
• It is Spring Break next week. We are all looking forward to a change of pace, from sprinting to meandering.
• We have so many fun things to look forward to. Rich and the older boys are going to General Conference, the rest of us are staying home and watching General Conference, I am going to Women's Conference at BYU with my sister and niece, Jacob and Katie have EFY in June, Whitney (my sister's oldest daughter) is getting married in July, plus many summer activities and camping trips! I haven't even mentioned school getting out and getting rid of the homework monkey always on our backs. Fun, fun, fun!

It could just be that the spring sunshine and flowers and birds chirping are contagious. It seems like, at least in Northern California, the whole world is cheerful and happy to be alive!

Family Night fun

Here's what happens when boys sing Primary songs with hand movements while sitting next to Dad during family home evening.

Happy birthday, Jeffrey!

Jeffrey turned 4 this week. He had scones with maple frosting for his birthday breakfast, we went to the park for lunch, and he had "chinchiladas" (Jeffrey's name for chicken enchiladas) for dinner. His birthday cake was, by very specific request, a yellow cake with blue frosting with a purple lightsaber on it (which is Mace Windu's lightsaber color, in case you don't know Star Wars as well as a four year old.) He got ninja turtles and legos for presents. Oh, and I should point out that he had to wear Adam's old basketball jersey that he had just gotten as a hand-me-down. It was a fun day!

Jeffrey is a good example that children are pretty flexible and can overcome some tough things over time. The valves in his lower ureters were too thick when he was born, so he wasn't able to urinate properly, damaging his bladder, ureters and kidneys. At 5 weeks old, he had a surgery to reroute his bladder to empty out of a hole in his abdomen. He had another surgery at 7 months, along with many painful and invasive tests and procedures. After that surgery and round of testing, he really wasn't sure who we were going to pass him off to next or what terrible thing they were going to do. He began to cling to Mom and Dad, terrified of strangers and refusing to go to anyone who wasn't a member of our immediate family. Now, though, just a few years later, he is totally independent and out-going. He doesn't ever want much help from Mom or Dad (which really caused a mess when he was potty training.) He says his "best buddies" are Jacob, Daniel and Josh. He and Adam go back and forth between "hating" each other and being best buddies, depending on how well they are sharing lego pieces. He really thinks he is one of the big boys. Even he and Beth get along great most of the time. He is a fiesty little guy, and we sure love having him in our family! (And, other than some minimal, residual kidney and bladder damage, he is healthy as can be!)

Here he is at birth and, below, Beth holding Jeffrey at 4 months old.

I looked out the window and what did I see?

Popcorn popping on the fruitless pear trees!

Here's a closer look. These trees are what we see when we look out the back windows of our house. I am so grateful for their cheery blossoms, and for the original owners of our house, who planted them.

Do you know something else I am grateful for? My sister came and planted our front planter, which had been overgrown with out-of-control ivy topiaries. She helped me choose the plants, bought them on sale for us at her nursery, and then went knee deep in freezing mud in January to plant it all. Here are some of the pansies that are absolutely thriving from all of the rain we have had lately. Only a sister would do something like that! Thanks, Jeanette!!

Another San Francisco Trip--Valentine's Day get-away

It is not a coincidence that Rich and I chose to sneak away for Valentine's Day and go to San Francisco. He wasn't able to come along last week for the cousins' trip (pesky job). We had a great time, just the two of us, all alone in San Francisco from Friday to Saturday afternoon. Here are some pictures:

This is the view from our hotel room. It was pouring rain when we arrived, but it cleared up and only sprinkled a bit here and there until after we left. Our favorite thing about this hotel, which we booked randomly on Hotwire, were the his and hers booklights above each side of the bed. Nice!On Saturday, we took a tour of Alcatraz. Here is our boat. The stormy weather made for a beautiful view as well as a turbulent bay (meaning we were ready to give up the view to get off the ferry and get our landlegs back.)

A view of Alcatraz from the boat

A view of the city from Alcatraz. If you haven't done this tour, we highly recommend it if you are ever in SF. We did the audio tour, and we also did a ranger "sitting tour" in which the ranger gave us all the details behind one of the famous escape attempts when the Marines came in a dropped bombs down the pipes. We came right home and put Escape From Alcatraz on our Netflix queue. We spent over two hours touring, and we could have spent another two, but we ran out of time. Really, even the ferry ride over and back is worth the trip because of the fantastic views!

We came back that evening and had heart-shaped pizzas with chocolate fondue for dessert as a family. Here are Daniel, Katie and Beth enjoying the chocolate. (Katie kept up our tradition of making pink pancakes and waffles for breakfast while we were away.)

Beth, Jeffrey and Adam

Dad gets in on the dessert.

A chocolate dipped marshmallow. Yum!

Anna got her share of the yummies too.

Notice anyone missing? Jacob had come down with a fever of 103 and was not interested in eating any of the Valentine's treats. I was so glad to be home early to take care of him (and the four others that have since come down with it.)

I am going to leave this with a little tribute to my sweetie. Rich is the best husband ever. Let me give a few examples. While we were away, it did sprinkle a bit. We only had one umbrella, so he held it up for me the whole time, giving me his arm to hold on. I am sure his arm got tired, but he never complains. Even better, when our Friday night plans to get lottery Wicked tickets didn't work out, we had dinner and then headed back to the hotel. We got into our pjs and snuggled up to watch a movie in our comfy hotel room (which was even more comfy compared to the freezing weather outside.) At Rich's suggestion, we watched Twilight despite the fact that there were many exciting action selections available. Isn't that a sweet guy? He is always the first one up and the last one to eat. He always goes out to run the errands in the rain, and he always carries the baby in from the car. I could go on and on. Thanks for being so wonderful, sweetheart!!

San Francisco Trip

The first Wednesday of the month is free day at the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in San Francisco. We took everyone out of school and took a day trip to San Francisco with Jeanette's family. Curt had the day off, so he came, too. We completely filled up the 15 passenger van, and off we went. Here are some pictures of all the fun we had:
Here is the van full up with Ipod toting kids. Those not listening to Ipods watched the in-trip movie!
Before going into the museum, we had our picnic lunch on the lawn behind the building. The kids had a great time feeding the ducks leftover sandwiches and cookies.

Here are Jeanette's Melissa, Adam, Beth, Josh and Jeanette's Ryan feeding the ducks.

Anna, Beth and Daniel in one of the sound-proof music rooms at the Exploratorium.

Adam uses a double mirror to make himself look like he has lots of arms and legs. The museum is full of hands-on science activities. The 11 and under crowd ran from one thing to another for as long as the teenagers would tolerate (and actually even longer than that!)

Adam, Anna, Melissa and Beth at another exhibit.

Julia and Katie watch as Beth uses the huge bubble maker. This was by far Beth's favorite thing to do! You can see by their expressions how excited the teenagers were.
After we left the Exploratorium, we went across the street to the beach where you could see huge ships passing under the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as Alcatraz Island. This picture is of all the kids (except Daniel) with the Golden Gate in the background. Jeanette's Janae and Julia, Katie and Jacob, Josh, Ryan, Melissa, Beth, Jeffrey, Adam, and me holding Anna. It was chilly!

After we walked along the beach, we drove up to the base of the Golden Gate so that we could walk up to an observation point part-way across. This picture is of the flower garden just before you reach the base of the bridge.

Here is Jacob on the way up waving to passing commuters.

The view back to the city from the Golden Gate Bridge on the way up.

Katie and Jacob at the observation point.

Katie, Jacob, Julia, Jeanette, Janae, Daniel, Josh, Ryan, Melissa, and Adam from the bridge

Ryan, Josh and Adam looking over the edge of the bridge. Curt and Daniel are in the background. Those are Jacob's feet sticking out. Josh told me that, although he is scared of heights, he was glad he decided to go up the bridge because it wasn't scary at all.

Jeffrey was sufficiently intimidated by how high up we were, so he didn't try to climb up to look over the bridge. He felt safest sitting right on the ground looking through the bridge to the water below. At one point, we thought we saw a shark, so he got a closer look, but still from the safety of the ground.

Anna slept in the stroller through the whole Golden Gate experience, which made me much more relaxed. Beth was scared to even get close to the edge at first.

But she warmed up after a while.

After we came back down, we took this picture of one piece of the cables that support the bridge. If you look back at my pictures, this is one of the big cables that hold it all up. Here are Beth and Jeffrey standing next to it to help you compare the size.