Colorful Dreams

This happened a few days ago...
Zach was on call for the ambulance and we were getting the boys ready for bed. Brenden had had his bath and I was getting his pjs on while Zach was assisting the bigger boys with their shower. In the midst of this, he was paged out and had to leave. The timing was just not great, as Brenden was half dressed and cold and Conrad was having a difficult time rinsing the shampoo out of his hair and Josiah was ready to get out and I was expected to be there for each one at that exact moment. (That's not a new concept, it's just that one moment the ratio of adults:kids was 2:3, the next moment was 1:3, with some added excitement of the pager going off and Zach rushing out the door.) From here, the evening pretty much went downhill. We got through showers, pjs, and teeth brushing, then I let the kids play for a couple minutes while I cleaned up the wet bathroom. Of course, my dainty little boys just sat and read quietly in their beds, knowing they were going to sleep soon........HA! No, I found them in Brenden's room. The older 2 had been coloring, and Brenden was THROWING the crayons ALL OVER the room! This amused the older 2, so they starting giving B more crayons to throw! They were very riled up and then had a big mess to clean up which made bedtime even later. Finally the big boys were settled in bed and I put B down in bed. Important note: I wrapped B in his thick fleece blanket before I picked him up to put him in bed. Wow, he threw a huge fit about going to bed! It took a little while, but then he calmed down and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, he woke up crying again, and Zach, not being able to get him to go back to sleep, brought him in to our bed. I took his blanket off and snuggled him up to me. What in the world!? His pjs were hard and lumpy all over! I took his pjs off and discovered about 20 crayons stuffed down his pjs from his belly to his legs! Once they were all removed, he slept soundly the rest of the night!!!!! Yes, I was distracted and obviously missed some important signals that my child was trying to communicate to me!! Brenden is in a hard stage right now, because he seems so grown up, and he's definitely not a baby anymore! But his language is still extremely limited and he can't just tell me exactly what he needs, especially when he's upset. So there you go. My "bad Mama" story that I'm willing to share!

Today is the last day of March and it's definitely going out like a LION! It snowed all night and only just stopped. There's probably 4-5 inches on the ground. It's supposed to be pretty cold at night this week and Zach is out climbing a local mountain with the students.

We have a knack for attracting stray animals at our house. I can't tell you how many cats have come and gone. We have our cat that we feed and love, but others come through and if they're nice, we don't care, but if they're mean, we chase them off. There are so many mice in the fields, that cats are a huge help to us. I always make the dogs go away. Last summer a little black bunny showed up and has hung out all winter. It eats the cat food sometimes and I throw it our veggie scraps. 3 days ago a chicken moved in!!! Have you ever heard of a "feral chicken"!? I've called the nearby neighbors and no one is claiming him! Seriously, there are big fields between each house around here, this chicken either had a very long hike, or it came off a truck on the highway. I don't know what we'll do with him, I felt bad and fed him, now he's not leaving. I don't mind since they eat so many bugs, but now we'll have to build him a house. He took over the cat's house on the porch!! I haven't been able to get a picture because he thinks I'm going to feed him every time I go out there. The other day, the cat was in his house w/his head poking out the door and the chicken was nested up on top of the box! Yesterday, the chicken had claimed the inside of the box. Since it was snowing last night, we brought up another box for the chicken, but the cat claimed the new box! Anyway, it needs a better spot because now I have chicken poop on my front porch. Yuck.

We spent Easter weekend in Spokane with my, (Cori's) family. I forgot to get the pics of my dad's camera, (surprised, aren't ya!) It was lots of fun and we even got to see my brother and his family!! Yay!
My grandma is 86 years old and recovering from open heart surgery! Wow, that's impressive to me! I was thankful for having the time to visit with them as well.

The sun is shining again right now! (But I see dark clouds coming down the valley.)

Happy Spring...

...or something.

Yesterday was the first day of Spring, it snowed yesterday too. It's nice to see buds and flowers on other people's blogs, and at the same time, it's very annoying. There are little dark buds on the maple tree and tiny hints of green tippy tops of Irises poking up, but that's all I've seen around my place.

I'm waiting, it has to warm up someday.

Happy Birthday Josiah!

Josiah turned 7 at the beginning of March. He decided that what he wanted to do most of all to celebrate was to go swimming at the hot springs! We weren't able to go on his actual day, but we went the next evening. Brenden stayed with some friends and the other 4 of us had a great time swimming! One tradition we do for the boys' birthdays is let them pick out any box of cereal they want at the grocery store. They love this and think it is a wonderful treat!



Grandpa Mac and Grandma Raine gave him a remote control snake!!! Wow, this has provided a LOT of entertainment in our house these last few weeks! Brenden caught right on that he was supposed to pretend to be afraid of it and runs through the house with his hands on his cheeks screaming at the top of his lungs! Very funny. And then not after a while.



He also received several Transformers, a big hit at our house right now!

Josiah is doing very well in school. He aced his math test yesterday and everyday his math homework is done faster than I could do it! Well, that's not giving him enough credit...but he really gets it done quickly and accurately, even reading the instructions himself! He is still working on the puzzle of reading, but it is coming together nicely. It's a good challenge to him now and he's determined to finish a book whenever he starts one, even if it's harder than he's ready for.


He's such a big kid and helps quite a bit around the house. He'd like to start helping us with medical training by being a patient in our simulations. I'm sure we'll find a place to use him soon and he's quite dramatic about everything, so he'll do great!


He's also quickly becoming an Uno champ!!