Phoenix is Skating

April 29, Phoenix started a "learn to skate" program geared toward proficiency in hockey. Again, the program is intended for ages 4 and up, but I called and left a message about enrolling Phoenix. He had the desire to skate this winter, I just didn't know what to teach him. He figured out how to stand up on his own this winter and I figured that is was a good start for this program. They had skating twice a week for eight weeks for a duration of one hour.

The first lesson was hard because, Phoenix wanted me on the ice with him... hehehe... that would have been funny more than anything. With 3 adult coaches and a smattering of other volunteers (mostly high school hockey players), a large number of kids learn to skate, fall, and manipulate hockey equipment. This was Phoenix's 3rd lesson and he is practicing pushing a chair to get his balance figured out. During the 5th week he figured out his balance, and we bought him hockey "shorts" (padding) and a stick to provide further motivation. He wouldn't put on hockey gloves at the store so we kept him in regular gloves, which he would take off about half way into class time. Eventually we borrowed a pair from friends that were already somewhat broken in glove and Phoenix kept those on during class for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, I did not remember to take pictures later in lessons, but he learned to "skate" with no chair, stand up wearing the hockey shorts, and hit the hockey puck. It was a good program to prepare him for this winter to have fun on the ice.

Alaska Zoo Fun Run

May 3, 2008, Phoenix ran in the Alaska Zoo Fun run. The youngest age group is 3-4 year old kids. I enrolled Phoenix anyway, and they said it was OK. I was a little apprehensive about Phoenix's willingness to run the trail without me, but in the end Robby volunteered to run with Phoenix and Ben. I was hoping to catch finish-line pictures, but did not succeed. With a sea of children wearing red shirts, I thought it would be easier to look for Robby. Come to find out, as soon as the race started, Phoenix took off running with determination to keep up with the big kids while Ben had no desire to be running at that time, and Robby was in between trying to convince them that they wanted to stick closer together. Phoenix crossed the finish line shortly after the older kids and Lori helped him to find me (she ran with Quinn who stayed near the front of the big kid -- 4 year old pack). Pictures 1&2 are of Phoenix getting geared up for the run. Picture 3: Ben, Phoenix, Quinn, & Mitchell before the race. As you can see, Phoenix is the two year old, running with his big boy friends (ages 4, 4, and 6).

Mother's Day

This Mother's Day is different, special, new in so many ways. My first reaction is to be sad. I don't get to call my mom and wish her happy Mother's Day. This is the first time for that. I can think about all of the opportunities that I missed. Things that I wished I had told my Mom or chose to do with her or for her. Yes, I will take personal inventory of why I miss my mom and what I think of myself and our relationship, but not on here. I will cry quietly on Sunday as I miss her during worship services, but I will also listen to my children and tend to their needs as my mother taught me. I will choose to allow her to live on in my head. When I hear myself saying something that she said to me a thousand times (and I finally got it on the 1,001th time), I will know that my memories of her will be shared with my children. I will choose to look forward and plan for being the Mother that I am and who I would like to be for my children. I will bring with me the happy memories of my childhood and pray for the safety and joy that my children will experience. I accept that I will not be a perfect mother and I am going to pray for God to guide them in the places where I fail.



Now for the special and new. My sister's and I are all Mothers on this Mother's Day. (Last year Christa was pregnant, but Michaela came out at the end of May, so her Mother's Day this year will be different.) We will have more Mother's Day joy as this connection between us grows. I look forward to being Mother to our children, and I will accept the love that they give me everyday.

Mischief

One day, Kira called me upstairs to show me what Phoenix had gotten into. I rush up the stairs to find Phoenix in the shower with nothing on but a diaper. He loves taking showers, or at least being in the tub while the water is on. He kept rubbing his hair; and then I smelled it: the shampoo. Phoenix had about one quarter of the bottle of shampoo in his hair. Fortunately, it was Kira's 2 in 1 shampoo for kids (no tear kind). So, rinsing out Phoenix's hair was only as traumatic as him being upset as water in his face from the shower head.

P.S. Notice how in the second picture, Phoenix has that shrugged look as if saying "what? what did I do?"

Welcoming Daddy Home

Most, if not all, of you know that Patrick returned from Afghanistan on March 14th (the final day of spring break). Here is the art work that Kira and her friend, Grant, created to welcome Patrick home. The kids taped up these two major pieces of art in the house as well as several other smaller papers.

Final outcome

This was the final outcome of Phoenix's hair altercation with scissors left on the counter. I decided to buzz it all the way off... well at least down to #3 with the clippers. This is how his hair looked 2 months ago. (Yes he has a banana cauliflower muffin in his mouth, courtesy of friends who made them.)

Life is life

So yes, life has been happening to us and all around us. I am looking at the calendar to try to pick the truly mentionable events. First, Patrick came home March 14th. Second, Patrick and Kira left Friday night for NJ to his brother's wedding. Tuesday Phoenix starts hockey/skating lessons (yes he is two, but he already "gets" the idea of being on skates). I am looking forward to the pictures from the wedding and skating. I will be updating the blog again sometime soon with pictures (you know the fun part of the blog) from various times in the past few months.

Skate with the Aces

After Sunday night hockey games, the Aces open up the ice for kids to skate with the Aces (hence the name of the event). After Kira's experience out at Westchester Lagoon, she was begging for more practice before her school had a Skate-a-thon to raise money for PTA. Devon had told me about Skate with the Aces, so I asked if they could take Kira after church on Sunday night. She went and had a great time. the second time she went Phoenix realized what we were doing and he kept asking, "Phoenix skate? Where Phoenix skate?" So I think that next time there is a Sunday game, Uncle Paul and his friend Bud might brave the ice with two kids. (Phoenix takes a lot of help because he is so young.)

Kira, uncle Paul, and Jacob (no relation although he does look somewhat like Phoenix) pose for a quick picture at the beginning of Skate with the Aces.

New do

Phoenix's hair was finally cut to the way that I would leave it alone. No more trimming, no more fussing. Then some friends came over to play with the kids. The four year old found the scissors laying on the bathroom counter and decided that Phoenix would be a good subject for trying out for beauty school... and removed a stripe of hair down teh middle of his head. Now Phoenix will be getting a buzz cut all over so that he doesn't look like he has a reverse mohawk. The pictures don't show it as drastic as it is in life, but this is as close as it gets. (You can sort of see his white scalp in the left picture and patches in the right one.)

Skating at Westchester Lagoon

We went skating with our friends at Westchester Lagoon. Fortunately, they were able to help with the kids and I was able to take pictures and video of our kids on skates for the first time. Kira did awesome. She was skating with the chair in no time. She learned that if she fell down, she could get right back up and get going again. Phoenix spent most of his time riding on the sled or the chair. Quinn was sweet to Phoenix and shared the sled and pushed the chair when Kira would go skating with Miss Lori.

Resembling the finished product

As you can tell, his hair is much shorter. When we get to a point that is acceptable I stop fighting Phoenix to make him sit for his hair cut. However, over the next three days he must sit for touch up times, where I fidget and fix his hair until I find it decent. This is day one, and it won't change much except get more even and add texture.

the hair cut

To get Phoenix's hair cut, I let him stay awake through nap time. Of course, half-way through the cut, the phone rang. I hurried to answer it so that it wouldn't wake the baby. Of course, I could find the phone. One might ask why I couldn't find a phone that was ringing perfectly loudly. Well, I am about to admit one of my faults to the whole world... I don't hang up phones. It makes Patrick crazy because he is always finding phones on counters, couches, tables, and beds, but never in the cradle. So with Patrick not here, I couldn't find the phone. Back to the story... while I was hunting the phone and finally answering it, Phoenix quickly ripped off the plastic hair-cutting apron and ran downstairs with half of a haircut. So I took pictures. I halfway liked it, but it would need touch ups. Of course, I could never get it the way I wanted it so he ended up with a full hair cut by the end.

The boy needs a hair cut somethin' fierce

VIP Kira

Kira's class has a VIP each week. This child is the focus of the week and they get to make a poster, do a presentation, and answer questions about themselves. Kira picked a whole bunch of pictures to print and then had to pare down to what could fit on the board. I showed her how to use my scrap booking outlines to make the pictures different shapes and the board is what you see above. For the presentation, Kira sat in the "big cushy chair" and used the teacher's pointer.

A New Experience

Kira had her first experience of being a flower girl in one our friend's wedding. She was very excited because she had always watched her friend Zoe as the flower girl for friend's weddings and Zoe's aunt's weddings. As parent's, we were honored that they chose our daughter to be a part of their wedding. She was nervous about her role in the wedding and thought that she might make a mistake so she walked around the house for the whole week before the wedding pretending to throw down petals everywhere. She was excited to be in the wedding and she did great! There was never a more beautiful or graceful flower girl in the world. This was also a great experience to help prepare her and increase her confidence for her Uncle Larry's wedding in May.

Kira rubbing her wrists together to rub in the perfume Christy gave her.
Kira trying not to smile for the picture while she is getting her hair done.

Kira and Phoenix hanging out before the wedding. Of course, Phoenix is doing something crazy in all of the pictures of the two of them.

And Again, Kira is awesome

Driving to Bible class last night Kira asks a whopper of a question.
Kira: Mom, I have a serious question about fish.
Mom: About fish? OK.
Kira: Do fish get married?
Mom: Fish can't think the same way we do. God made people as the only ones to think in the ways that we can. We are the only ones who can make complex decisions and love the way we do.
Kira: Well, then how do fish get together? How do they get more fish?
Mom: Since fish don't think like us, they can get together without being married and make more fish.
Kira: Oh, OK.

I struggled with how much info to give Kira. It seems that I answered her question adequately and she didn't want details just yet, but I know that the day will come when she has tougher questions.

A Kira moment

So after leaving the JMC (where we had to take Patrick to catch his plane to Afghanistan), Kira notices that we have driven a bit and she can still see the building where we left Patrick. Then she said:
Kira: Today is the saddest day ever.
Mom: Why is that? (I wanted to hear how she would express missing Daddy.)
Kira: Because today is the day Daddy left. But tomorrow I will just get happier and happier because everyday means one day closer to Daddy coming home.

It was a great moment of seeing a child's optimism in a hard time.
We were handling it all fairly well until Patrick got on the shuttle bus. Kira came running to me crying and just wanting to be held. Of course that made me cry too. Then we got to see Patrick on the 10:00 NBC local news. It was like we were just there and it didn't seem so long before that we had seen him.

The Christmas Card

Here is the story behind the crazy looking Christmas card. We decided this year all of us should be in the picture since the last few years have been only the kids. We started looking through our pictures in the beginning of November to find a good picture of the four of us. Since we found none, we thought that Paul and Devon's wedding would be a good place to get pictures taken since we would all be dressed up for the event. Well, as it turned out, we had a friend snap some shots of Patrick and I, but the photographer offered to take pictures of us as a family. Without having immediate feedback of seeing the pictures, we trusted his comments... which were along the lines of "beautiful...lovely family...nice shot." However when we got the picture, it wasn't a good shot at all so it is not the one we used for the Christmas cards.

We all looked decent for Patrick's work Christmas party so we had a friend from work take several shot of us in front of the Christmas tree. As we scrolled through the picture, most of them had strange shadows cast over us (which we later figured out that as she was taking the picture, she raised her finger in front of the flash.) After looking through the non-shadow pictures, we selected the best one, but is still needed to be cropped. Cropping and editing on the computer is easy, but getting it all the way that you want and remembering to save the changes (while being interrupted a thousand times by little two-year old hands) is more difficult. When I finally uploaded a picture to Costco photo center, my attention was called away by a sweet two year old. Patrick came home on his lunch break and saw that I had uploaded a picture for the cards. Because he did not want the cards going out in March again, he decided to place the order for the cards. I was happy he did so because that meant next time we went to Costco we could grab the cards too.

When I came home with the cards, Patrick opened them up and made the comment, "did you look at these before you paid for them?" Nope, I sure didn't. I was thinking maybe it wasn't us or something like that. When Patrick held up the card... sure enough there was the top of Phoenix's head instead of his cute little face. I am sure that when some of you opened the card, you thought why would you send out that picture? Others might have thought... yep that is the way it is with kids. Still other thoughts might have been, that was probably the best shot of all of them, you know how kids wiggle and squirm. None of those being the case, we decided to pay $5 and get wallet sized pictures of the kids printed and add it to the card instead of paying for all new cards and then throwing out the old cards.

As we started looking for a great picture of our kids together, we couldn't find any. We had tons of great candid shots of each one by themselves, but hardly any of them together. Finally, we decided that even though Phoenix had his paci in the picture that we sent out it was the best one of the two kids together.

Lesson learned: Take more posed pictures of our kids together and pictures of us as a family.

And now you know... the story behind the cards.

A cropped version of this picture was supposed to be the card.

The picture that actually went out.

Trip to Illinois in July/August

Three silly cousins... Jaden, Phoenix and Kira.

We went to State Farm Park pool a few times. They have a huge kiddie play area, a regular kids play area, a lazy river, a regular pool, and a big slide/diving board area. It was great fun for us all. Michelle braved the little slide with both boys. They squealed with delight the whole way down.

Mom and Michelle hanging out on the side of the pool talking and taking pictures. I took the camera from Mom to get a quick picture to capture the moment. I am glad I did. Mom always smiled big and laughed loud to show her joy in Christ Jesus.

Kira holding Michaela. This was Kira's favorite thing to do the entire trip. Any chance that she got, she was asking to hold Michaela.

A picture of Grandma with her daughter and 5 grand kids. At first, Mom was taking the picture of us cousins with Grandma, but then the neighbor came out and offered to take a picture with all of us in it. Since we had all taken the trip to Grandma's house, we thought that would be a good idea. Grandma was exhausted so she sat in the van and we huddled around. Mom was in the shadows for the picture, but at least we had her in this picture. So often Mom was the one taking the pictures and not in them.

Is Phoenix ready?

for potty training??? Are we ready for that huge commitment and added laundry??? Well, we bought him a potty chair anyway. We talked to other moms of boys and decided on the Baby Bjorn potty chair. It has a simple two piece design with a built in splash guard (no worries of the splash guard being popped off and falling into the potty.) The day that we bought it, Phoenix was so excited that he went potty in the potty 4 times, pooped once in it, and only had 2 accidents in his undies. Please notice that Phoenix is trying to reinforce his boy-like behavior by tossing his undies casually on the floor next to him.

Phoenix sporting his big boy undies. Since that day, he has not had but a few times of making it to the potty chair before he potties. We have no desire to push the issue since he just turned 2 a few months ago, and he will "get it" in his own time. We will provide the learning opportunities and the encouragement.