Nightmares

This is completely random, but hey, this is my journal so I can be as random as I want.
The past couple nights Kaleb has been coming into our room, always between 3-4 am, of course. He comes in whimpering with his blanket over his head. He wants to crawl into bed with us; that only happens at 7am when I'm not quite ready to get out of bed! The first night I rocked with him then put him back in his bed. He was back in our room not too much later, several times. I eventually was so tired I broke down and laid down in his bed with him for about an hour. I of course didn't get any sleep. Last night this scene was repeated at 4am. In came Kaleb bumping along, hiding in his blanket. This time I asked him if he had a nightmare. It must be so frustrating not having the words to articulate what is wrong. I sat with him for a bit; Jake talked to him about nightmares. Explained to him that if he was seeing scary things it was all in his head. We both reassured him he was safe, and he could always hug Phil (his stuffed cow) really tight. Then I told him Heavenly Father was always with him, he could talk to him. That seemed to be the magic he needed. I guided him back to bed and there he stayed...well, until about 30 minutes later when he wet the bed. But, after that incident he stayed in bed and seemed to be fine.
Jake and I started talking about when we first remember really telling our parents we were having a nightmare.
Jake was dreaming about volcanoes and went in to tell his parents not to move somewhere there were volcanoes. So far, they have held true to their promise. Although we moved to Idaho and Jake goes to a school that is built on top of an inactive volcano. Well, and the fact that we live next to Yellowstone; I mean, that could blow at any time, right?
I must have been 5 or 6 when I went in to tell my dad he couldn't leave mom and come back and kill her. There is a back story to this ... there always is. If I remember I was reading the newspaper earlier that day. I had grabbed a dictionary to look up the word 'estranged'. Yes, back then when we wanted to know what something meant we had to actually go get a book and open it, weird, huh?
So far, my dad has held true to his reassurances to a 5 year old girl. My mom and dad are still happily married, 45 years and counting. They even successfully work together running their frozen yogurt and tax business. Those two businesses totally go together in the same sentence, right?
Also, my kids aren't allowed to read the newspaper unless I cut out all the bad parts. But then, all that would be left is the 'funnies'.
We don't really know what Kaleb's problem has been but I hope it's not repeated, I'm tired!

Hope Rekindled

With a sigh of relief from both of us Jake finished up his last finals (for this semester) on Thursday. He did really well this semester. I am so proud of him and am also grateful for all the hard work he is doing. Now he can start playing his online game he's been waiting 5 years for!
We spent a quiet few days relaxing. It was strange to wake up to deep snow on Friday. But, no worries, we live in bi-polar Rexburg. It was hot and sunny by Saturday. The boys loved going outside to play in all the remaining puddles. It will be interesting to see if this girl likes to be any cleaner than her brothers. Nah, she'll probably be in a tutu playing in the mud.
Saturday night Alexander started getting feverish and lethargic. I was up half the night with two whimpering toddlers. I'm not sure what Kaleb's problem was, he just thought someone needed to hold on to him while he slept. By morning everyone was sick (I'm stuffed up, does that count?) I spent this Easter with just my three boys; grumpy, runny, and wheezy. I hid a few eggs around the apartment Saturday night. After a cold cereal breakfast (no one was feeling up to eating the waffles I wanted) we sat the boys down and shared with them the true meaning of Easter. Then we let them, with lots of help, hunt for the eggs. Most of the eggs just had silly little cheap toys in them.The biggest hit was the balloons. I also had for them some small bags of a few more fun toys and a little bit of candy. I'm really excited for the two family gifts I got. A 101 piece cookie cutter set ... mostly to use with their play-dough. Now Jake wants me to make shortbread cookies (we'll see when that happens). I also got us one of those velcro paddle ball catch things ... (makes perfect sense, right?) It will be fun when we can get outside and all play. Jake needed to go to church since he was needed for singing tenor in the church choir. He took Kaleb with him for a few hours and I got to stay home with a wheezy, snotty nosed Alexander. It seemed like such an uneventful day. As we reminisced about what our families used to do on this holiday we wished we could be hunting for eggs at the sand dunes or gorging ourselves into a food coma as we worked our way through a big Easter dinner surrounded by family. Despite everyone being sick Jake still went ahead and made fajitas for dinner. It for sure isn't a traditional dinner but it was what we had both been craving...it tasted sooo good. I even ate the onions and peppers, rather than only the meat. I needed to use up some strawberries and cream so the obvious choice for dessert was strawberry shortcake. After too many sweets, a light, not too sugary dessert was delightfully perfect.

From our family to yours, whether you celebrate or not, I hope you enjoyed your Easter. What a wonderful way to start my favorite season, Spring. It is a season that whispers to me there is hope in all life. Winter won't last forever and eventually the sun comes to warm the earth and thaw the frozen ground. I am grateful for the promise of Spring every year. Amidst any sorrows or hardships there will always be a Spring time in our lives.

Sandy ... Beaches (I Wish!)

Rolls are rising, chocolate and vanilla pudding pie is cooling, our friends won't arrive for at least another 30 minutes. I figured I would take this break between conference sessions to update and share a few random stories and pictures from the past few weeks.

Kaleb's talking has exploded. He always has something to say and can be quite opinionated about certain things. His favorite food os biscuits and gravy ... as long as it's made with ground sausage. I think he could eat that for every meal. He throughly savors every bite and will easily eat more than I can right down to licking his plate.

 Although he would also gladly take a corndog, quesadilla, or nachos.

The other day as Alexander napped I tried to figure out things Kaleb and I could do together. I remembered a bag of painting coloring pages my mom gave me. They have a small watercolor paint palet on the bottom of the paper. I pulled out some brushes, set Kaleb up with the paper on a cookie sheet (grateful I thought that far ahead!) He thought it was the coolest thing ever! It easily lasted through the entire naptime...

 ...soon as Alexander woke up he wanted to join the fun.

 I will have to find some painting and art supplies for the boys. This will be a fun supervised activity.

We unfortunately have a small sand box out on our back deck. Soon as Jake is free it's going away! The boys are always dumping sand in the house. Last Sunday I was making rolls to go with dinner. Kaleb decided I was missing an important ingredient ... sand. He added sand to my bread dough. I picked out what I could but they were still noticeably crunchy - blech!

Alexander is my little mama's boy. He loves to always help me in whatever I am doing and wants to always be by my side. He was eager to jump in and help make waffles for dinner ...

...I just shouldn't have turned my back when he had the eggs within reach. Yes, I am grateful he didn't dump them on the floor

Both boys have discovered a love of Star Wars. Jake has a bunch of video game trailers on his computer that the boys want to watch whenever they can ... "space ships! We want space ships!" They know more of the characters than I do. They will tell daddy they want to watch a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy'. They can pretty much quote most of the scenes now and like to talk to me about the Sith, Koriban, Tie Fighters, Droid, Inquisitor, and let's not forget Kaleb quoting Darth Malgus "and finally, we have returned" or both boys running around quoting R2D2 "bee-boo-bee-boo"

And to end with my favorite part of this past week: I only have 10 weeks left! Here I am 30 weeks, plus a few days. I am really ready for this pregnancy to be over and to be holding our little girl. This one has been the hardest on me and I 've been feeling a lot more symptoms and strain I ever remember being part of pregnancy. The doctor assured me it's just the stress of having two toddlers. Me and baby are both doing great and she seems to be right on track with growth ... and so am I - ooof.

This next week is Jake's final week this semester. We are both ready to see this semester at an end. Jake has been seemingly living at school as he busily tries to complete all his final projects and study for his numerous final tests ... poor guy has 3 right in a row next Thursday!

The weather has been gorgeous and perfect! Lets get summer started! I think we'll have to hold off a few months for camping trips though. I feel a bit bad that I can't run around with the boys as much or take them on as long of walks.