An Interview with Wesley

Here's my actual interview with Wesley today. All entries are direct quotes.  

What's your name: Wesley 
How old are you: Free.
What's your favorite color: Green and White.
What's your favorite food: Chicken and broccoli please.
Who are your favorite friends: Cassius and Ben and Bluke.*
What's your favorite thing to do: Clean up. (Me: Really? Wes: Yeah!) I'm not convinced
Where were you born: In Utah.
Where do you live now: In Ridge Crossings Parkway.
Where did you live before this: Connecticut.
What kind of cars do we have: The Escape and The Fit.
I like ABCs.
What else do you like: Hmmm, my mom and dad and Reesey and Mommy and Daddy. 
Where are you going for Thanksgiving: To Las Vegas.
-- No we're going to Texas. Oh Texas.
Who are you going to see there:  Cassius and Ben.
Who else: Uncle Clark and Aunt Guinevere. 
Who else? I don't know the right names.
What else do you want to say: Wesley Avarell.
What's your favorite toy: A tractor with paint and a orange one.
What are you going to ask Santa for: A tractor with paint that has a handle that's ten dollars.**
Who's your best friend: I don't know.
What's your favorite shirt: My t-rex shirt.
What are your favorite shoes: My tenna ones.

Now Wesley wanted to type:
rufg7ryr7gjjghythgvghggggggggggggggggggggjkpvuhhnmvmkkkkkkkkkkkkpppppppppppppppphhhhhzuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmm

Wesley is really smart and really capable with language, but there are still a few cute things he says. For example, to him the singular form of "clothes" is "clo." As seen above, "tenna" is the adjective for shoes, not "tennis." He'll also say, "Is this my spart?" which is a cross of part/spot.

*Bluke: Whenever I would take Wesley to the child watch at the gym, he would tell me afterward that his "favorite kid" was there. I asked his "favorite kid's" name, to which he always insisted his name was Blue. I asked if this was an imaginary friend, maybe a Blues Clues stuffed animal they had there, a nickname... no no. Wesley was sure the actual kid's actual name was Blue. He was so persistent with this belief that I started to believe it. After all, people are naming children all sorts of bizarre things these days. One day I asked the staff as I was checking Wesley out if they had any child named Blue that came. I explained why I was asking and they looked over the rosters and sure enough, no Blue. Still, Wesley was sure his Favorite Kid was Blue. Then one day, I ACTUALLY met the kid. (I'm pretty sure his mom is a Zumba lady-- we are always at the gym at the same time, but never in the same place (because of course, i do not do Zumba. No thank you.)) Anyway, I was not about to let the chance pass by without catching a look at this adorable favorite kid's name tag: It's LUKE! Ooooh I totally get it. I completely understand why Wesley would have heard Blue instead of Luke. Easy mix up. So then I said to him, "OH! Wesley! His name is LUKE, not BLUE." To which Wesley replied, "Oh BLUKE! I get it."

**The other day in the craft aisle of Wal-Mart Wesley fell in love with a paint-your-own wooden tractor kit that had a handle on the package. He carried it all around the store and I told him about 100 times that I wasn't going to buy it today. He continued telling me that I was buying it today. It wasn't until I suggested that perhaps he could save his money for it or ask Santa for it that he put it back.

I really love this kid. He's hilarious and a ball of energy. He is getting so big but he's still so little. In my skewed perspective, it's easy to think that 3 is old since I have only a 1 year old around to compare it to. Last night Eric and I were talking about how we only have 3 years of parenting experience, but it feels like a long 3 years. It seems like we've had these little tinies forever. Life before them is a distant dream.

27 Birthdays

It's that time again! Today is my birthday. And no, I don't feel old. Not at all. Old is so relative. I'm the youngest in my family and the only one still in my twenties. My husband is the youngest person in his office. (Well I think they might have one a year younger now...) I was almost the youngest person I knew in Connecticut. I'm younger than all the other moms in my preschool swap group.

So no. I don't feel old, and I sort of feel like I'll never join the ranks of the wise and experienced if I keep on being the youngest all the time. I've spent my whole life as the youngest, it's sort of weird that anyone is actually younger than me. Like when I watch college football and realize I graduated high school before any of those players had even started. I realized the other day that the kids that I babysat for back in my teens are now the kids that I'm hiring to babysit my own children. And I have a nephew in high school.

But this is just how life works. We get older and being older is awesome. Truly. When I was pregnant with Wesley and just a young buck in Provo, I taught yoga to a lady in her 40's that was easily the coolest person I know. She taught me that 40 is really the sweetest age. The truest age of awesome. So I will continue to like birthdays and I promise never to mope about my age on my birthday.

In order to continue aging awesomely, I have set a very ambitious goal to help me finish out my twenties with a bang. I want to complete an Ironman by my 30th birthday. The real deal. That means a race that involves a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike, followed by a 26.2 mile run. Call me crazy. I'm all in. Bring on the birthdays.

Wesley's first soccer game

Wesley is such a fun and active kid. We signed him up for a sports class at the YMCA this fall for 3 and 4 year olds. They spend 3 weeks on soccer, 3 weeks on t-ball, then 3 weeks on basketball, with 2 practices and a game for each sport. We were excited for him to try some things out and to have the chance to be coached by someone other than mom and dad. He was excited because we were excited, and he loved having a new soccer ball. I think he knew something exciting was going on, but wasn’t quite sure what.

He did ok at the soccer practices. The first one he was on the tail end of a virus, hadn’t slept well, and was pretty grumpy. The next week he was all over it. He was LOVING the drills and kept taking turns when it wasn’t his turn, he was having so much fun with it.

Then came the game week. 

Here he is not really paying attention to the initial instructions. He's the one leaning on his ball on the far left.

He really likes the drill where you put your foot on your ball. Again, far left.

Wandering away from the team when they were supposed to be lining up to divide into 2 teams

 At this point they were instructed to give their own ball back to their parent and they would then play a soccer game using only one ball. Wesley refused to play since they weren't using his ball.

 The awesome and intuitive coach realized what was keeping Wesley from playing, and allowed Wes to swap out his own ball for the game ball. Here Wesley is in the middle of the shot chasing down HIS ball. (He's the one with black tennis shoes and no shin guards, in the center of the shot).

 Well he pretty much just freaked out and melted down that all the other kids were kicking HIS ball. Yep, that's one of the coaches, carrying my spazzing kid.

 Once he FINALLY laid hold on his precious ball, he immediately took it out of play. He grabbed it and marched right back to the sidelines.

 I tried and tried to get him to get back into the game.

 But mostly it just went like this.

 On the sidelines.

 Yeah I was still trying to get him to go out there...

 The coaches are so nice and persistent. They have way more patience than I would.

 Oh well. That lasted long... not.

 Reese was enjoying her time with me on the sideline. She wanted to grab the camera.

 When Eric joined us after work he tried to convince Wesley to play. He wasn't successful either.

 This is Reese's "Mommy-Hold-Me!" face.

 Afterward they had the whole team sit for a picture. Yet again, the coach is trying to get my kid to join the group.

 He ran off, the coach caught him and we tried again.

 He's sitting here because we bribed him with chocolate cake. "Wesley if you don't sit down for this picture you won't get any chocolate cake at home tonight!" And then he sat.

 Clearly the boy has a bright future in soccer. The next David Beckham.

All in all, it was a frustrating and hilarious and adorable scene. Eric is not at all a fan of soccer, so he wasn't too broken up over Wesley's disinterest. Last week we started T-ball and I have much higher hopes for that. We've never played soccer with him at home but we play baseball all the time and have since he was really little. He's actually never watched a soccer game, but he's watched plenty of baseball. I'll try to give the update on the T-ball game. Stay tuned in a couple of weeks.

Today I took my kids out on a little stroller run. One thing I didn't know about Alabama before I got here was how hilly it is! There are some pretty intense hills and for some reason they don't seem to believe in sidewalks out here, so running with a double stroller isn't really my favorite workout option. However, the kids are getting over colds and I didn't feel like dropping them off at the gym child-watch today, so we hit the road. There is a nice trail in an adjacent neighborhood, but getting through that neighborhood involves lots of hill climbing.

I had a nice run on the trail and was heading homeward, through a neighborhood of giant homes and trudging up one of those big old hills. All of a sudden I hear a dog barking. I quickly glance to my right to see an unleashed and unattended German Shepherd barking and ferociously charging toward me. "Oh sh*..!" I say to myself as my adrenalin rushes and my fatigued body desperately tries to pick up the pace up this concrete mountain. Immediately, the scene is playing out in my head. How do I protect my babies? Do I have time to step on the stroller brake before the dog attacks me? At that point I am not even concerned with my own safety, but if the beast gets near my babies I WILL bite harder!

Then all of a sudden, the dog just turns around. It never stops barking, it just does a 180 and runs back to where it came from. I was completely puzzled. I can't figure out why it did that... Invisible fence? Not likely. I didn't hear anyone calling the dog back. Was it just trained well enough to bark and charge and scare the crap out of any intruders, but not attack? Probably. But the thing looked MAD. Like it was charging out of the fires of hell.

Then an image flashed in my mind: I had just gotten the kids buckled in the stroller and starting walking. Before I hit my running stride, I said a little prayer. Please protect me and my babies from any harm. Help us have the energy to complete the run and help us get home in safety.

Prayer works. Romans 8:31-- If God be for us, who can be against us? Not even crazy hell-fire dogs.

Sweet dreams, sweet home...

Today I had one of those nutty mid-afternoon nap dreams. You know the ones I mean... In my dream Eric and I had moved to Alabama, bought a small fishing cabin and Lady came to visit. We were running late getting her to the airport because she was too busy trying to clean stuff with 409.

I woke up and chuckled at the impossibilities... We would NEVER be late getting Lady to the airport. That is nearly impossible. I mean, have you ever taken her to the airport? You will be at least 2 hours early. (btw, Lady is my awesome mom and the only feasible reason she might be late for something is that she would be helping one of her kids clean something).

The next impossibility, a fishing cabin? Why? I've never even been fishing and I think Eric mentioned he had done it once at scout camp but it doesn't seem to have made that big of an impact.

And lastly, Alabama? Really? Who moves there? Oh wait.  I did. I really did. Not dreaming. It still feels like it though.

People keep telling me I'm going to grow to love it here and never want to leave but I'm struggling to believe that. Maybe once we find a house we love that doesn't have as many bugs as this apartment. Or maybe once my family because un-bite-able to all the ants and mosquitoes.

We've been here a month now and so far killed 3 scorpions in the house, I forgot how many roaches and spiders, a bunch of millipede/centipedes, and at least 3 unidentified creatures that look more like Randall from Monsters Inc than insects. We don't even bother killing the pill bugs...

Randall Boggs from Monsters Inc

Plus we can't play outside without getting bitten which is really frustrating. I'm sure it's all a perspective thing. I think we killed a total of 5 spiders in our place in Connecticut in the entire time we lived there. You could sit in the grass with no fear of ants, so this is a big adjustment.

So everyone constantly asks how we like it here to which I reply, "It's beautiful!" because that much is true. But it's kind of like the jungle: It's really beautiful and amazing things grow there, but there are just so many bugs! (I guess I don't really know that since I've never been to a jungle, just watched National Geographic. I know I couldn't handle jungle bugs).


Anyway, does anyone like a place the first month they live there? Don't answer that, I'm going to just keep telling myself the answer is no and hope for the best.

In other news, my kids are still totally adorable.

After downing a delicious plate of vegetable lasagna, then hiding behind said plate.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! This holiday definitely snuck up on us. I feel like we are still in the middle of a move and getting settled and figuring out our new surroundings. As a result I realized Easter was here and I had absolutely nothing planned!

We went to a fun community egg hunt that was total madness, a playgroup egg hunt where Wesley dominated and then shared his eggs with all the little kids, and a yummy breakfast at the church. Good thing for all of that stuff because Mom and Dad had nothing for the babies and I started feeling a little guilty about that Saturday night. I remembered that I had a giant box of gorgeous hand-me-downs from a super generous cousin so I pulled them out and found Reese a new Easter dress! (Thanks Bethany!) Then I made Wesley a little bow tie using this tutorial. It was super easy and adorable and came together while I baked rolls for a little Easter potluck we are having at a friend's house today.

The kids were completely adorable if I do say so myself. Here are the few quick shots we managed before running out to church.

As a post-potluck update, one of the moms brought about 500 eggs (holy cow) for the 17 kids that were there. Needless to say, they were in heaven. Wesley got 30 eggs all by himself and even Reese snagged 4! It was nuts and they both hit a total sugar high followed by a sugar crash of course. In other news, Reese decided to try cat food for the first time and one of the little girls there made up a little rhyme-- Wesley, Wesley, Wesley is so sexy! It was a wee bit disturbing and made me sad that his name sorta rhymes with sexy...

Anyway, I just want to add that despite how much I hate the inevitable over-sugaring my kids get, I do love Easter. I know that Jesus Christ took upon him the sins of the world and only through his grace we are saved.  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) I know he died for us and that he lives for us! He rose from the tomb. He lives. He loves us more than we know. I love my Savior Jesus Christ.

On the road again

For Eric and I, moving is just what you do as a young family. Before we reach our 5th anniversary this summer, we will have moved 5 times. We realized a lot of our friends probably have no idea that we are moving again, so consider this an announcement. We are moving to Alabama! 

It has been such a blessing to live in Connecticut the past year and a half. We've met amazing people that we love dearly and it will be so so hard to leave them behind. We've had wonderful opportunities to travel and experience a part of the country that was completely unfamiliar to us before. Now we are looking forward to meeting new wonderful people in Alabama and experiencing a different unfamiliar territory. We are confident we will grow to love it and are excited for the change. Most especially excited for a very positive job change that will allow Eric to be home and give our family a bit more consistency.

So here we are, up to our eyes in boxes, getting ready to embark on our next big adventure, and anxious to make our Sweet Home Alabama!