Update

Here's the week:

We have had a good week. Although none of our kids are in school we still benefited from spring break. Well, we didn't do preschool lessons with Dallin or a playgroup with Adam like normal but those don't take much of our time anyway. We ended up having quite a busy week. On Monday my mom came over and watched the boys while I went down to the sewing machine shop to get oriented on the new machine I got for my birthday. I have had an old machine that needed a tune-up and it wasn't really worth the cost to keep it maintained. Several weeks before my birthday Mark left the house on a Saturday to "get his hair cut." After two hours of him being gone I begun to wonder what was taking him so long. After three hours I thought things were getting ridiculous and called to see what was up. So he had to tell me he'd been out and about for my birthday. Kudos to Mark for planning early, I was impressed (this doesn't usually happen--usually he leaves the house the day before a holiday to go and "run errands.") So I got a new machine and now I am ready to actually begin some sewing. Baby steps, like maybe some Easter ties for the boys like I made last year.

Tuesday Dallin got to go to a birthday party. Wednesday we went to the zoo with neighbors from three other homes on our street. We have some great neighbors and my kids love having kids to play with all the time. After the zoo we came home and the boys all took naps (even Dallin). That evening was sleepovers at Grandma and Grandpa Smith's. Mark's sisters had been wanting to have Dallin and Adam over for a sleepover for a long time but Adam was still having occasional (and sometimes frequent) accidents so we waited a few months for him to get the chance to sleep over. Mark and I had a night with just the one little babe. We went out to Waldo's BBQ and Owen fell asleep on the way home and slept pretty much all night long. Good baby.

Thursday I picked Dallin and Adam up from Grandma's for a gathering at the park with some friends in the ward. There was suppose to be a group of people getting together but we ended up being the only ones that showed up so we went for a walk just the four of us and had our own picnic. Halfway through the picnic we saw a friend (not from our ward) who we hung out with for a while till it was time to go. Dallin was not too happy that there were no friends to begin with and kept asking me who I invited and wanting to know why no one else was there.

Friday a couple of friends from high school came over for lunch. We use to get together once a month for a "Salad Day" but hadn't since Owen was born and another friend had twins last summer. Not everyone could make it, but it's always fun to get together with old friends. Even though I don't see them enough, I still feel like these friends understand me better in many ways than anyone I've known since. Mark and I went to the temple that night while some friends watched our kids.

Yesterday was a great day! That morning we spent some time cleaning the house together. We set a timer for five minutes for each room and cleaned until it beeped then moved on to the next room. After we were done with that we went hiking at South Mountain. The weather has been gorgeous and the mountain was green and covered in yellow wildflowers. Aside from each of Dallin and Adam falling and scraping up their arms and/or forehead we had a great time. If you live around here you should go ASAP before it gets too hot. We came home and tended to a few more chores then returned the favor and watched our friends' kids that night.

About Dallin
Dallin is five and a half. He will start kindergarten later this year. He is reading pretty well now and writes and does really well at coloring detailed pictures. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up being an engineer, or an architect, or some other design profession. A few months ago he had made several space ships or robots or something and I told him to put his toys away. He decided to draw diagrams of each one in a notebook complete with arrows showing which peices connected where. He also named each one with names like "LNX" (linx) or the name he was most proud of, "BLTESE" (like the sandwich). Like I've said before he is very social and loves to have a friend to play with. He loves board games and could tell you several facts about the planets.

I taught Dallin the Fifty Nifty United States song and was really shocked to find that Adam in the process had learned most of it. I know it's not essential or even necessary to teach little kids this kind of stuff, but I like that they have heard of all of the states. Now when they hear someone talking about Minnesota or Florida it doesn't all go over their heads, they at least know that those are some of the states.

About Adam
Adam is three and a half. He likes to sing and change the lyrics of songs to try and be silly. He memorizes songs really easily and even just a few weeks after being in Primary for the first time he was singing some of the songs at home that he'd just learned. He seems to have gotten past a rough, rebellious stage and is much easier to discipline and spends less time in time-out. He is a sweet boy and still often tells me he loves me throughout the day or wants to hug and kiss his baby brother. He smothers Owen sometimes and loves to get things like toys for Owen. Adam loves to play with his wooden trains, dress up in his Pikachu costume, play with his stuffed animals and ride his tricycle.

Lately Dallin and Adam have been arguing and fighting a lot. I have been at a loss with what to do. For a while I tried not to intervene because I wanted them to learn to work things out for themselves. It sounds silly now, seeing as they are three and five years old. Then I remembered the scripture about not letting your children fight and quarrel with each other and realized I needed to do something else. My newest strategy is to wait a while and see if they can resolve the problem and when it is clear that won't happen I will stop them and say that since they are fighting then they will have to think of something nice to do for each other and if they need some time to think about it they can go into their room until they come up with something. So far (It's only been a week or two) this is working. This idea came from a Relief Society lesson a few weeks ago on service. One lady said that she noticed another family whose children always seemed to get along with each other and she asked the mother what her secret was. The mom said that they taught their children to serve each other. I am trying to change and start teaching that principle to my children. I was happy that just yesterday out of nowhere Adam decided to make Dallin's bed for him. I told Dallin what Adam had done and Dallin was really happy about it and commented on how straight his blanket was on the bed. Progress.

About Owen
Owen is rolling all over the floor. He has two bottom teeth now. Still sweet and cute and sunshiney. He can grab little bites of graham crackers and feed himself. And he there is not too much more to say except that he is loved a lot around here.

Did you make it to the end of this ultra-long-post-without pictures? Wow, I am impressed. And now we are signing out.