Big guy, little guy

Joseph has been sooooo very excited for this activity almost the entire month. It was a knight activity at the library with sword fighting, a magic show, castle building, food and books. It cost $5 a ticket and we got our tickets on Friday.



This man works at the same company as Joe. Apparently he is one of the programmers.



Joseph sword fighting. Joe said that he would look over on occasion to make sure that it was okay to hit the adult sword fighter. The sword fighers pretended to die, but Joseph kept hitting one of them after he was down.



Joseph getting his face painted.



He was so sad to have the dragon cleaned off at the end of the day. I told him that he would be able to look at the pictures of the dragon on any day that he wanted to. I guess the meal that they ate was less than stellar. They ate cheeseburgers from McDonalds. Joseph also got 2 books from the activity. Joe said the hardcover books went fast, so Joseph got a coloring book and a Berenstein bears book.



Joseph castle building. Obviously this happened before the face painting. Joseph thought it was the best activity ever. I guess that will hold true until we go to the dinosaur museum for the Easter egg hunt tomorrow night.

Presents and gifts

Joseph: "I really like presents. I also like gifts."

Later on...

Joseph: "I like to share."
Daddy: "Why do you like to share?"
Joseph: "So I can be nice because of Christmas and I can get presents and gifts."

Marriage proposal for Joseph

Today one of the mom's told me that her daughter informed her that she was going to marry Joseph. Her mom asked if it was the Joseph in her gymnastics class. She said, "Not the Joseph in my gymnastics class, but the Joseph in my preschool." Her mom asked her why Joseph. According to Nahli, she wants to marry him because he colors well and is nice. Joseph seemed pretty keen to the idea. He said he loves her and that he will visit us all the time after he marries her.

Also today, I was driving and Joseph exclaimed, "You are the driver! I can stretch out my legs!"

Conversation:

Joseph: "I know what kind of party I want. I want a Noah's ark party."
Mommy: (laughing to herself) "We'll think about it."
Joseph: "Don't think about it, just trust me."

Earlier today we were drawing a picture with animals and insects. He drew an ark for the animals.

Joseph: (referring to the monkey I had drawn) "Don't forget to draw the omnivore teeth."

Samuel

Samuel is such a fun kid. He is wanting to talk and to do more and more each day. Tonight I was trying to get him ready for bed and he kept putting his fingers on my mouth so I could make noises as he brushed them up and down. He was chatting up a storm and only he knows what he is talking about. He kept touching my thumb with his thumb just to make sure it was still there.

One thing that is funny to watch is him pounding his fists on his chest like Tarzan or a gorilla. I still need to get a good video of it. Joseph and Samuel are having fun together and we are having fun with them. Joseph is excited for a Knight activity at the library this Saturday. A week from today, we will probably be going to the dinosaur museum for a dinosaur Easter egg hunt. It is from 5 to 7 in the evening, so we will have to see if daddy can get off work early to come with us. It is also Uncle Ziggy's birthday, so we will see what we do for that as well.

I finished teaching health and need to enter grades. They want me to fill in for their counselor when she is gone on maternity leave. I told them the only way it would be possible is if they will let me bring my boys. I don't want to be gone from them anymore than the 2 hours that I am gone from them for my Spanish class. They might let me do it and they might let Joseph attend the kindergarten class while I counsel and teach. We will see if that is what I decide to do.

Right now (Tuesday morning), I am sitting in the ark. Lately Joseph has been fascinated with Noah's ark. He "built" an ark in Samuel's room and over the past few days has been bringing things that we need onto the ark. Currently the ark is in disarray because Samuel has torn all of the puzzles off the shelves and spread them everywhere. He is also following his big brother around the room and taking out toys everywhere he goes. He misplaced his letter "I" and started carrying around the zero from another puzzle. Of course, when you give him the I, he lets go of the zero.

Things that Joseph has put into the ark:
-an apple, a banana, an orange, a bottle of water, and some dinosaur fruit snacks.
-my purse
-daddy's t.v. remote
-the thermometer
-lots of toys and books
-toilet paper
-his swim trunks
-his cowboy hat

Everyday he adds more to his ark so that we can be safe from the flood.

From Joseph's perspective

These are all pictures that Joseph took on our trip to the paleontology museum with daddy.


Joseph loves his velociraptors. He took a picture of the claw that makes identifying a raptor easy.

Petrified wood.

A pterandon above our heads.

Pictures of the mural that is on the wall. Joseph took mulitple shots of this mural, highlighting the different dinosaurs that he likes.

Daddy's favorite dinosaur when he was a kid. Joseph likes dimetridon too.

Pictures of the past couple of weeks

Samuel likes to pull everything out of this drawer. I pick it up at least a few times a day.


My boys in their cozy coupe. They often get in fights over who gets to be inside, but sometimes they decide to share. Samuel likes to climb in and out of it. He stands on the seat and opens and closes the door.

The other night, it got really quiet in the toy room. Joseph was in bed and I couldn't hear Samuel anymore. I went to check on him and found him covered in chalk dust. I guess Joseph didn't put it out of his reach.

We went to the park for about half an hour before we went to pick Joe up from work. Samuel had fun going on the slides and I was able to get Joseph to try the slides by himself. Samuel tried to climb up the slide and started getting irritated when he couldn't get anywhere. He also enjoyed crawling in the mulch and on the grass. Joseph ran up the hill that is next to the equipment a number of times.

Last but not least, Joe went with us to the Paleontology Museum at BYU. Joseph took lots of pictures, which I will post later. Samuel enjoyed crawling around the exhibits and daddy and mommy had fun being with our boys.

Conversation:

Joseph: (this wasn't so much a question, but a statement of truth that he was looking for corroboration on)"Mommies never die. Right, mommy?"
Mommy: (that came out of left field and I had to think about what to say for a minute or so) "Well, hopefully mommies won't die till their kids are all grown-up with their own families. You see, dying is part of Heavenly Father's plan. He is your daddy and my daddy and he wants us to come home to him one day."
Joseph: "How does he do that?"
Mommy: "Well we get back to him when we die. That is why we have to be very good and do what is right in this life, then we can live with him."
Joseph: "How does he take us back to the planet?"
Mommy: "I don't really know, only he knows. But you know what?"
Joseph: "What?"
Mommy: "Heavenly Father has promised us that we can live with our families forever all the time. We just need to be good and we can see our mommies and daddies and families again when we die."

I don't know if this is exactly what he wanted to know when he asked his initial question, but I didn't want to lie to him. I also didn't want him to be sad. He hasn't brought it up since our conversation, so I don't know if he has thought about what I said. The spirit was present, so hopefully he felt peace in his little heart.

And also

This morning Joseph woke himself up fairly early. He climbed into our bed and tried to get comfortable. He decided to get up because he needed to go to the bathroom. Well, he wanted to let us sleep some more. I heard him go to the kitchen and move a chair (I knew he had gotten a yogurt from the fridge. This past week he realized he could pull off the lid himself). After he finished, I heard him singing in the living room. He was singing at the top of his voice, "Follow the prophet, follow the prophet. Samuel was a prophet, Jesus was a prophet, Joseph was a prophet." Of course, a few minutes later I heard Samuel crying in his room. At least Joseph tried right? ;)

Productivity

Yesterday was a very productive day. I cleaned the living room, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned and vacuumed the bedrooms, gave the boys baths, washed clothes, folded clothes, sorted through clothes that we are going to donate and estimated their values. Overall, I felt really good about what I accomplished. The boys and I even played in their room and I tried to teach Joseph how to 2-step.

Poor Joseph is sick with a cough and fever right now. He woke himself up last night with his coughing. It woke me up and I got out of bed to give him water. I went to bed way to late last night because I played games with my brothers Ziggy and Esteban. At least I feel like we can do stuff today because everything is in order for the moment.

Samuel ventured to walk on his own with me there in front of him. He scared himself a little, but slowly, he is building up courage again. He is starting to let go of things and try and walk short distances. It never ceases to amaze me how fast babies seem to grow up. Samuel is learning to communicate. He and his brother laugh and play together, but they also fight over the same toys. They are so much fun. My heart is so full of joy to have them. They are my little blessings from heaven!

Finally...

Joe's company has promoted him. For ages, he has been doing more and more, above and beyond what his original job description called for. It only took his company 2 years to recognize and reward him. He is now the supervisor in his area. It came with a raise and hopefully at the end of the month they will give a merit based raise as well. My husband is truly amazing and quite an invaluable asset to his company. He is also an invaluable asset to our little family and we are so proud of him!!

New accomplishments

Samuel can now hold his own sippy. This is a big deal because now I can hand it to him and he can drink himself. Of course this means that he chews the sippy nipple and splashes milk all over the place which in turn makes him laugh and do it more. He learned to say "all done." When he sees his daddy he says "dadadada." He likes to clap a lot. If we can get him to walk at all, we all cheer him on and clap when he reaches his destination. He smiles and claps along with everyone.

Joseph recognizes all the letters in their upper and lower case. We are working on getting him to read some words. He has counted to 31 and is still a bitt muffled with 14 through 19, but once he reaches 20 (with help) he counts on his own. He is also picking up on some Spanish. Since I am teaching at Walden, I told him he could come if he can learn and remember words in Spanish. He doesn't always remember them, but at least he is trying to say things whereas before, he wouldn't even try.

It is actually Tuesday morning, and I am getting ready to go to jury duty selection. I have never done this before, so I am a bit nervous and extremely tired. The clock may have said it was 6:15 in the morning, but my body felt like it was only 5:15. I need to go and get some snacks in case I am there longer than I hope to be.

Walking Samuel

This is a pic of Samuel walking around the toy room. He was getting more and more confident, but not long after this picture, he let go to walk towards me and fell backward and bumped his head pretty hard. Since then, he has been even more hestant to venture steps alone. I am trying to help him along. Joseph cheers and claps anytime Samuel walks on his own. My reserved little boy will get brave enough to do it alone!

"I scream" if you take my ice cream...

Samuel loves to grasp and crawl with an ice cream puzzle piece. I need to find it again. It is "lost" temporarily. Also he likes to grasp a small magnetic apple piece, a chimpanzee magnetic piece, or any other small pieces. Tonight he was playing in our closet and then he fell forward and hit his face on the doorframe. I have blood on my shirt. He calmed down pretty fast because he was nibbling on his sippy cup and yanking it out of his mouth.

Conversation:

Joseph: "Mommy, how did Samuel get out of your belly?"
Mommy: (thinks for a minute before responding) "Mommy pushed him out."
Joseph: (incredulously) "You did?!"

And I remember why I left teaching...

Today in biology a group of 6 guys were swearing and not doing their final paper for the class. After a few warnings, I decided to get up and inquire how things were going:

Me: "How is your paper coming along?"
Student: "I am not doing the paper because you didn't take me to Bajio."
Me: "You are doing your paper because I didn't take you to Bajio? You are not in my class."
Student: "I am not in Josh's class and he let me go to Kneader's with them."
Me: "I guess I am not as nice as Josh."
Student: "That kind of came back to slap you in the face (referring to not taking him to Bajio."

Yeah. Students like him (which are all too common) are a pain and have no respect. They feel all too entitled. This was a perfect reminder of why I wanted to leave teaching in the first place. Thank you student for refreshing my memory.

Substituting and more

This past week I have substituted at Walden and am so very grateful that I don't work there full time anymore. It is fun, but so exhausting. Yesterday Joseph called me and was almost in tears because he missed me. Samuel woke up this morning and just wanted me to hold him. At least next week, I am back to only teaching for a couple of hours a day, four days a week. Of course, I guess next week I am teaching health and have to prep and grade stuff. Yeesh. :P

They also want me to fill in for their counselor when she goes on maternity leave in April. I will see what it entails, but I can't guarantee anything because I miss my boys too much as it is. If I can bring them with me, that is another story.

Joseph and Samuel had their iron levels tested this week. They are both good. Joseph has grown about an inch in the past couple of months. Samuel has gained over 1 pound in the past month. Joseph complimented the lady that pricked his finger. He said, "That was really good. You did a great job." Today at school he was talking to any of the junior high and high school students that would listen to him. He made a lot of friends today. Only one more day this week and then I will have a less intense couple of weeks ahead of me. :)