Download overload

This morning was a little bit of down time for me.... so I finally got to taking the pictures off my phone.  Here are the cutest baby ever pictures from Dec til now.

Refugees

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Isaiah 49.  My family has had a long involvement in helping people that come from different situations.  My grandparents housed, taught and loved a family from Vietnam with 6 sons.  My parents took in a Vietnamese family of 6 when I was Ada's age.  I loved them.  We've recently gotten involved in the Utah County refugee program.  It's different than it was with the Vietnamese families.  They assign 5 families to care for and teach them refugee families in the area as their government benefits are running out.  Jer, my parents, my brother Seth and I have been assigned to help a man and woman from Myanmar.  We're mostly to help Cung.  Pau's been in the US for 5 years and has a good grasp of English, has a car and a job making sushi in a grocery store.  Cung only speaks Burmese and has been here for 8 months.  We think that they were religious refugees.  They're Baptist, and the political climate in Myanmar is anti Christian.  Christian children aren't allowed into school, and other similar situations with adults and persecution.  We've been getting her to a morning English class, trying to figure out health care and trying to find them a two bedroom apartment.  It's been so neat to start to get to know them.  We enjoyed having them over the other day for dinner and games.  She's very shy unless she's interacting with my baby.  She seems to enjoy his company a lot.  The kids pray for them every day and are patient with me when they have to be in the car more often to take people places.  It's been a joy.

I have a second family with needs just like the refugee family.  They do not have refugee status, but the actions that I take are similar.  The ward missionary that I worked with in one of my wards in Ecuador came up here.  14  years ago, her husband moved here.  He was too old to for high school, so he never was taught any classes in English. He worked in PF Changs for a few years until he decided to move back to Manta where he met my friend.  They were married and had a baby girl.  7 years ago, he decided to move back up to Utah to be with his 8 brothers and sisters.  My friend stayed in Ecuador to care for her mother who had cancer, her daughter, and work as a school secretary.  The husband has been working in a car paint shop and still doesn't know more English than just to get around with.  He asked for his daughter to come visit last year.  She came and loved it here.   Then the earthquakes happened in Manta.  Their home was destroyed and had to be rebuilt.  She told me that they had the sister missionaries there visiting.  The one sister missionary stood up and walked to the other side of the room just before the earthquake shook the wall that she had been sitting next to down on top of the room.  No one was hurt by mere seconds.  She talks about still having nightmares of the room shaking.  After that, their 12  year old daughter refused to come home, so she came up here.  She quit her job, came here with little English training and wants to stay to raise her daughter.  The hiccup was that she is pregnant with another man's baby when she came.  She had no more than a few hundred dollars to her name.  Most of the husband's family shut her out and will not help her. One sister in law took pity on her and let her stay on the couch of her 2 bedroom apartment where they already had 5 people living.  I helped get her prenatal care, emergency Medicaid for when the baby was born (3 weeks early because of preeclampsia), postpartum care, and friendship.  In the time that she's been here (just a few months), she's had so many changes.  She didn't know where to get breast pads when her milk came in.  She's listening to her mom beg her to come back to Ecuador.  She's been through counseling with the Bishop and Stake President.... now her and her husband want to find a place to live together as a family.... and neither of them have any credit history. 

These needs are around us every day.  I didn't know that my missionary friend was here until a missionary friend of mine up here asked if I'd gone to visit her yet.  Needs are real and right here.

22 Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
25 But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.


One of the neat things for me is that Manta was a harder area for me to be in.  My 2 companions in that area were difficult.  The ward missionaries were my only connection to something stable.  Cristian, Cristina and their mom cared for us and still care for the missionaries today by the sounds of it.  I get to help back.  When I needed, now I can give.

Hanging out

I took my Ecuadorian friends to get some shoes for their daughter, this is Lia, and found the pink angry bird hats on sale for $1.50.... couldn't resist.

We have been so busy that we decided to rest Saturday.  We took the kids to Cherry Hill park and went sledding.  It was Seth's second time sledding.  Last time he just pulled the sled around, this time he loved Daddy taking him but still didn't want to go down on his own.  He was super cute.

I'm always so impressed with this man.  He plays so well not only with his own kids, but also with his nieces and nephews.  He makes my heart happy.  Last time I went sledding, I found it was really painful.  I cracked my tailbone at 21 (by sledding), and after 4 births moving my cracked tailbone around.... sitting on the sled and sliding on it really is very uncomfortable.  I did walk up and down the hill with baby Seth though.  He thought that was great.

Look at this happy girl!  Evelyn has been excelling in reading.  She is the farthest reading level in her class, but I don't want to push her.... unlike Ada and Sam that wanted to reach higher levels, Evelyn purposefully leaves her books at school so that she gets a break every so often.  At least she isn't fighting me.  I fought my Mom like crazy when I was learning to read.  It was just so hard to work through the hard part and get to the fun part.  She's playing the piano with me at home and has just started learning to read the staff notes instead of the big notes with the names inside.  She's my little helper in the little kid fencing class that I teach and is catching on pretty good even though I don't think she enjoys it as much as the other two did at this age.  She tolerates it so that she can help me.

This Ada has grown so much in the last year.  I look at pictures of her and wonder where my baby went.  She is a great big sister, especially with Seth.  She's been able to find new friends in both the ward since our boundaries changed and at school.  Our current struggle is her conflicting schedule.  She's not doing a lot, but her stuff is always at the same time as other people's stuff.  Piano lessons are when Evelyn has a class.  Activity Days are when fencing classes are.  She's also working on separating consequences with self esteem.  Every time she's been in trouble lately she goes off on how she's a horrible person.  We're working on the application of repentance instead of the theory of it along with knowing that everyone makes mistakes and can change the mistakes... and that doesn't mean that we are horrible.  That also applies to her.  She can make mistakes and choose better next time instead of dwell on "I'm horrible".  She's still doing basic violin.  We've been busy, so she doesn't practice that one more than once a week.  She loves sledding and skateboarding.  She is doing very well in piano and the fencing coach is glad to have her.  She enjoys playing with the people there, but it seems like she's more there for the people, not the sport.  I think she's beginning to get to the point where she's going to learn how to get past the "bored" or "hard" parts of things to get to the results that she wants.  She always tells me these goals that are great, gets started on them, then she relies on Mom to make her get through them, then loves that she completes them.  I know that's common, but I'd like to get her to where she can rely on herself to get through most of them at least.

Seth is showing interest in the potty.  He likes to take off his diaper, go sit on the potty, flush and wash his hands... then he'll come to me and say that he went potty.  He's just missing the actual main reason for sitting on the potty.  I decided to actually try potty training him for reals.  I bought a toy phone and taped it to the wall and told him that he could have it when he pees in the potty.... of course he decides that he now wants nothing to do with the potty.  So we'll wait. It's so weird knowing that this is probably my last potty trainer.  I'll miss my baby, but I won't miss the diapers.

Sam is in a very independent stage.  No one can tell him what to do.... he's in charge... We've had lots of discussions about the difference between listening and working with someone (like your parents)and having your own choices to make.  He's stopped talking back to me and Jer, but he still doesn't do well if Ada tells him to do something.  At church on Sunday, we get there 20 minutes early so I can play the organ (which I love doing), Jer is usually running around making appointments with people for the Bishop.... so our kids ages 2-9 sit in the pew by themselves for the first 20 minutes.  Seth likes to get up and walk back and forth down the pew unless we give him a bunch of cars to play with.... then he sits there playing cars in one spot.  Evelyn sits but doesn't get the whole need to be at least a little quiet.  She usually does okay if we give her something to draw with.  Ada is usually pretty quiet and is a great helper with Seth unless she sits by Sam.  Sam sits and complains loudly about being bored.  Every time he tries to play with Seth (which I'm not okay with because they always end up wrestling), Ada tells them to stop and Sam starts fighting with Ada because she's not in charge and can't tell me what to do..... even though I do leave Ada in charge to tell Sam not to wrestle with Seth. This last Sunday I ended up having Sam come sit by me behind the organ.  That kept the peace, but I had a 7 year old whining at me that he didn't want to sit up here and why couldn't he just go sit with everyone else.  For all his analytical mind, he doesn't quite understand working for the good of the entire family instead of just himself yet.  He's loving the bigger kid fencing class, though I can't bring snacks or else that's all he wants to do is sit and eat them.  We took a break from floorball because of crazy schedules, but he very much enjoys it and I'd like to get him going again.  Sam is loving his piano teacher.  He's learning the Star Wars easy piano songs.  It's fun to hear him.  He hasn't fought at all about learning piano.... he just does it.  It's so fun. 

I've very much enjoyed having my brother Seth live with us while their house is being built.  He was one of my best friends all growing up.  He still is.  I enjoy the extra time to say hi, talk about silly things, play games, watch him care for my kids.... he's an excellent uncle.  Baby Seth and Evelyn especially enjoy when he reads books to them.  I love that he's willing to pitch in around the house.  I've done half as many loads of dishes and it's been a nice break.  He's always willing to help with the hard things too.  I'll miss him when he moves, but I'm glad that we have right now.

Ummm yeah

I really need to catch up on my blog.  I've been swamped.  Nearly every minute of my day has been busy with one thing or another for the last month. 

This morning I got kids off to school, spent the morning figuring out medical stuff for our Burmese refugee family, got Evelyn off to school and spent the afternoon figuring out housing for my Ecuadorian family.  Got Evelyn off to acrobatics and took the other three to walk on the track.  I was really excited to let us all get some exercise in, but Seth has decided that he's too big to use a stroller so I stopped taking one when we go to the track.  I like the track because it fits all our physical levels so well.  Sam ran 2 miles without stopping while I dragged Ada by the hand around the track for a mile. (She'd rather play a sport than just exercise). Seth was so excited about Sam running, but he couldn't keep up so he'd run with him until he just couldn't keep up anymore then would sit down on the track and wait until I got there.  Then he'd walk with me until Sam would come around again.  Seth was never out of my sight, but occasionally he'd wander off into the runner lane and I'd have to persuade him to come back before any runners came by.  What was interesting was the reactions I'd get.  I'd get several older people smiling at my efforts to both encourage and discourage my kids from different things.  One guy that said, "Keep it up!  Example is the best teacher!"  And a worker telling me that they had had a complaint about my kids 'running wild' on the track.  As far as I could see, they had never run into anyone or gotten in anyone's way more than just having to pass us because we were slow and they were fast kind of thing.  They asked me to not let my kids run 'on their own' without me.  Ummmmm..... Sam was the only one out of my sight for even a little while and when he runs he doesn't criss cross all over the track or anything... he runs in the lines.... did they think that I should keep all my kids in a quadruple stroller and push them all so that I'm the only one who gets exercise? The only kind of way to keep my toddler contained is a wagon, not a stroller.... and wagons aren't exactly permitted on the track.

It's interesting how one situation can be see in so many different ways.

Sam's homework

Sam's homework said that he needed to fit the number 294 into a sentence.... he said, "Dang! Dang! Dang! I wish it were 394 because then I could use the quote from Harry Potter. Turn to page 394."

This boy and his car

Racquet ball

Awesome timing

Whoops.  Our carpool didn't show up this morning for school.  I called and she just didn't know where her husband was.... he'd left his phone home, but he'd already left.... I checked the school website and it didn't say anything about not having school today, so I woke up the two littlest that were still sleeping, scrapped the car off and drove the kids the 15 minutes of slippery snow to school.  I got there 20 minutes late to have them tell us that they had a delayed start today and somehow I missed that through their notification system, their website and our carpool.  

Talking to Santa

There was an hour that you could get on the ham radio and talk to Santa.... here's of line.

Helping mom practice

Happy camper