New Year's Eve Party 2018

This New Year's Eve my sister Melissa spent the day driving with her daughter half of the way to BYUI. With her out of town, I invited the rest of her family over for NYE thinking that they wouldn't have anything planned on their own. What ended up being beneficial for my brother-in-law John and his boys ended up being beneficial for us as well. I promised Boy Howdy that he could stay up until 10 which meant A LOT of time to fill with fun (of which he expected a lot). I came up with a few games, which the Jones boys found a way to improve upon to the joy and satisfaction of all. There was some crying but mostly fun and while it was fairly low-key it still ended up being way more fun than either family would have had on their own. We even had headbands! Thankfully Sydney, Australia was already done with their countdown extravaganza so we got to celebrate with their fireworks and excitement and still have everyone to bed before midnight.

The silly part was Chewkie's great disappointment that she didn't get to stay up after bedtime with her brother because it was so late. I mean, big tears that she had to go straight to bed. At 10:30pm, I am going to chalk that up to being super tired from all the fun.

I Followed the Prophet

Years ago one August, President Monson, or maybe it was President Hinckley asked the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year. I was somewhere in the middle and rationalized that as long as I finished by New Year's I had done as I had been asked. I often regretted it that I hadn't started over as so many of my peers had.

Fast forward to this past October at General Conference when our Prophet, President Nelson, asked the females of the church age 8 and up to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year. I once again, tried to rationalize not starting over but was told and knew in my heart that I would be flaking on the opportunity as I had years earlier.

I'm so glad I didn't flake. Along with the counsel to read the Book of Mormon was an instruction to highlight all the verses that mention Christ's name, in all its forms. Tonight I finished. And although I have LOVED the Book of Mormon for MANY years, I gained a renewed appreciation for it's statement that it truly is Another Testament of Jesus Christ.

Interwoven through beautiful and heart-rending stories of faith, rebellion and redemption emerges Jesus Christ as the central character of the entire book. He is Rock upon which the stories, the lessons, the prophecies, and the doctrine are founded.

I have a friend, a member of another Christian denomination who firmly believes that members of my Church aren't Christian, or if we are we don't worship her Christ. This makes me more sad than I can say. But as the famous quote that often gets attached to Mother Theresa says, in the end it is between me and God, it was never about them anyway.

So despite my friend's objections, I will continue to talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ, preach of Christ, that my children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins (2 Nephi 25:26).

I know my Savior lives. I know that He is intimately aware of me and is actively working through all means at His disposal to show me His love so that I will be better able to reflect that love to others. So often I don't recognize His efforts and I get down on myself, or His plan for my life. But when I stop to look, even on really hard days, His tender mercies are all around me. I am beyond grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the clarification of that gospel that comes through the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I feel as Peter did when Christ asked if the twelve would abandon Him.

67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

I love my Savior and I am thankful for the opportunity to grow closer to Him through the Book of Mormon.

The Christmas Sleepover

With Christmas break officially started the kids wanted to make a fort in the upstairs rec room that they could have slumber parties in. The picked a fort design that would enable them to each have their own wing that met in the middle. But of course they wanted to sleep in the same wing and leave the other one full of toys. Oh my sweet children. Boy Howdy kept waking his sister up forcing us to abandon the fun after a few days, but they LOVED it while it lasted. And as much as I didn't love having a cranky daughter, I can never get enough of the love these two have for each other.

Gingerbread Houses 2018

So often I feel like such a lazy mother which is why moving close to family is so wonderful. I get to leverage off my sibling's traditions when my own are lacking. Case in point, the annual Booren Family Gingerbread House making party. My older brother, Joshua, made cookie cutters for my sister to make her job of making upwards of 20 or 30 kits from scratch every year easier. I am amazed every year at her goodness and enthusiasm for undertaking such a herculean feat year after year.

What a great tradition we get to be a part of now that we live close. Thanks Melissa!!

Everyone's

Mine, Boy Howdy's and Chewkie's

The Girls' First Nutcracker

I may be 39 years old, but tonight was both Marler girls' first time to the Nutcracker. Girls' Night Out!! We were out until 9:30 on a school night. Oooh. Chewkie (because her mother wanted her to) has opted to tap instead of dance ballet, so her class performed the following week. But with friends of hers and mine performing we decided to attend. What a lovely evening. It wasn't super polished, that's hard when you have many of the dances performed by children under the age of 10 but Chewkie loved those dances the best. Since she was up way past her bedtime, her attention span and energy dwindled and near the end you could hear her audibly sigh that it wasn't over yet; but as soon as we got outside she immediately asked when we could go back. New Christmas tradition.

She begged for a souvenir to hang on her Christmas tree that she almost immediately gave to her brother when we got home because he felt sad that he didn't get to go. Oh how I love my sweet daughter and our night out.

Boy Howdy and His Two Front Teeth

He's lost his bottom two, with another one on the bottom for good measure and now he's lost his two front teeth. Three gone at one time. It's a wonder he is still eating solid foods. I played him, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" which he loved dearly but thanks to a massive overbite this boy is still able to say all his "S" sounds just fine. Thankfully all the rest of his teeth feel solidly attached because he needs some time for the three to grow back in before any more come out of his little head.

The Kids Get Baby Christmas Trees

I love the traditions that Matthew and I have incorporated from our own childhood memories, but I especially love the traditions that we have started all on our own. One of those being that the kids get to pick out their very own $5 Christmas tree that they get to put in their rooms with their decorations.

Some of the decorations they've made themselves, some they've been gifted by my mother, and some they've appropriated from the family Christmas tree.

Boy Howdy wrote a short essay about what he loves about Christmas and his baby Christmas tree is the first mention. Also noted are hot cocoa, snow, presents, looking at Christmas lights (a tradition that came from Matthew's family), hot showers, cookies (another Matthew's family tradition), and snowflakes on the ceiling (another of our own traditions). This makes me feel that even with my laziness for decorating and celebrating, maybe I haven't completely voided the kids' childhood of magic and joy.

Fall adventure

We had an unusually warm and sunny fall day. Not hot, honestly the most perfect of fall days and we couldn't let it pass without glorying in it's beauty. We gave the kids the choice of what hike they wanted to do and they chose this funny little nature walk their cousin cleaned up for his eagle scout project. Perfect.

 There were leaves EVERYWHERE so Matthew and I kicked them together in a pile and had the kids jump in.

The walk sports several of these odd nature sculptures. So of course the kids wanted to climb in and be photographed. Side note: honestly, more often than not, the kids pose and ask to have their picture taken.

 More posing on some off the trail, aka, forbidden, logs.

Now these are candid. These are my favorites. I don't even know what the kids are looking at, I think they were just happily discussing life and I happened to catch their unfettered childhood joy! The other picture I love because seeing them happily interact together (which happens a lot, but being able to capture it on camera in tricky) makes my mama heart melt.

I absolutely love crunching leaves. Maybe that's why fall is my favorite season. For the last few years as I've thought about the approaching gloominess of an Oregon winter, I think, "am I ready for this? Am I ready for the loveliness of summer to be over? And then Oregon gifts me the most perfect fall. September and October in Oregon are my favorite months of the year. Still sunny, still warm but not hot, an occasional rainy day, and lots of beautiful trees that turn the most gorgeous shades of fall.

Thank you Oregon. For all the depressing gray reputation you deserve, when you shine, you really radiate, even in the middle of November!!

Notes From the Babes

I am so glad each stage of development brings with it something completely awesome. Right now the babes are both into writing me notes. Often with decent grammar but awful spelling. And honestly, the worse the spelling the better the note (so long as I am still able to decipher it). Here are a few recent ones from either child.

The first two are from Boy Howdy. I was upstairs while the kids were playing before bedtime. When I came down to go to bed I had this little package waiting for me in front of my door complete with helpful instructions. In the little tape-wrapped ball was one of Boy Howdy's dinosaur figures. While I wasn't super hip on the dino, I did LOVE his presentation.
As far as the note on the right goes, I'm not sure what it relates to, but I love it all the same. "I have escaped" as phonetically rendered by an endearing 6-year old.

The second set of pictures is double sided, so really it's just one note, though she did write another note for me to give to a particularly kind student. This one, in case you need help is, "Mom you are a good teacher to your students." The picture, of course is of me teaching my seminary class. What a sweetheart. My daughter thinks I'm a good teacher, even if my seminary class may not agree.

Chewkie FINALLY Loses a Tooth

I think you may be hard pressed to find a little girl more excited to lose her first tooth. With Boy Howdy seemingly losing teeth every few days and reaping many tooth fairy rewards, Chewkie has been absolutely desperate to lose one of her own. But now it's official. The tooth fairy will be coming tonight!

In a lengthy discussion at bed time, she has ruled out her father or I as the possible tooth fairy candidates stating unequivocally we are too big. A tooth fairy to this 5-year old is more like tinkerbell and is most definitely female.

Happy right of passage my sweet girl.

Halloween 2018

Happy Halloween! If you can't guess my children are dressed as a blood ghost and a butterfly queen.

In 2016, Boy Howdy was a ghost and Chewkie was a minion. 

In 2017, Boy Howdy was a blood bat and Chewkie was a butterfly. 

This year, Chewkie wanted to be a seagull but I convinced her she should use her princess dress that I bought her years ago but has always been much too big. We tried finding her butterfly wings to complete her ensemble but no love. She didn't seem to care. She even let me put a little bit of makeup on her.

Boy Howdy, like every year, had a whole list of potential costume ideas but settled on a traditional black bat. However, just before I went to buy stuff to make up his costume, he changed his mind and decided on being a blood ghost. Just like last year I offered to alter his costume to better serve his vision, and just like last year he he liked it just as it was. Oh how I love the simplicity of his costumes. I mean, don't get me wrong, Chewkie can not be considered high maintenance by any stretch, but I'm pretty sure that the award for easiest costume three years in a row goes to Boy Howdy.

But for the first time at Halloween we went with other neighborhood children. The kids were in heaven. They got to trick or treat with friends, they got to stay out well past their bedtime and they got a ridiculous amount of candy. 

My favorite part of the evening was three-quarters of the way through, and some of the kids started losing steam. We came to a group of houses with two flights of stairs just to the front door. They were decorated to the hilt and blaring the Ghostbuster's theme song. While we were waiting for the rest of our group, Boy Howdy decided to sit down on the driveway and take a little rest. Chewkie, however, started jamming to the music. It was the perfect tale of two children. After walking several miles late into the night, Chewkie was still going strong and rocking like it was 1999. Boy Howdy soon recovered and finished the night strong, but dancing was definitely out of the question. 

The kids decided that going out with friends was by far more fun than going out just the three of us. I guess we have a new tradition.

Happy Halloween!!!

Pumpkin Carving 2018

We picked our pumpkins a week and a half before we carved them and the wait was complete and utter torture for Boy Howdy. We tried explaining that if we carved them too early they would go bad, and I think he understood in concept, but it didn't make waiting any easier for this Halloween loving boy. 

He was so excited to carve he wanted to start the moment he got home from school. I was so proud of him. This was the first year that he more or less did the carving from beginning to end. Other than cutting the initial hole, he excavated, designed and carved all by himself.

 Chewkie was much more interested in playing with friends so she got a later start. She still did the excavating by herself and she designed the face, but she was much more lackadaisical about the execution of it all. Pops to the rescue.

My pumpkin and Matthew's pumpkin. I love how warty mine is. Matthew's is Minecraft inspired. 

Boy Howdy's pumpkin and Chewkie's pumpkins. I love that out of all of our pumpkins, Chewkie had the most sinister one. 

Happy almost Halloween!

Last Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

I had my last field trip to the pumpkin patch with this little kindergartner and her little BFF O. At least they were my charges for the morning. They got off the bus so excited for the day until they saw all the fun playground-esque excitement that they (I mean Cheeks - actually I'm going to start calling her Chewkie if it's all the same to you) weren't getting to do. Oh Chewkie. 

She was not excited for the ride on the tractor trailer to learn about what fruits and vegetables are grown at the farm.

Nor was she all that thrilled about seeing the sheep and goats or learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin.

The pig and duck races may have been slightly entertaining, because who wouldn't be interested in watching pigs run and ducks waddle around a course. Actually the ducks were pretty funny, but mostly due to their utter lassez-faire attitude about the whole event. One duck even jumped the fence while the others milled about not realizing that small children were cheering for them. The pigs on the other hand were definitely in it to win it.

And she may have been moderately interested in finding the perfect pumpkin. But the unpictured slide area with high slides and low slides and a gigantic mound of tires was definitely her favorite place and she sad to leave.

Especially since it meant having to take a picture in front of a silly frog hay bale (I have ones of her smiling but I like this one the best)

But even though her trip to the pumpkin patch didn't allow her to roam free and take in whatever sights her little heart desired when she desired them, and even though she didn't get ice cream on the ride home (because she was riding back to the school for an assembly instead), she still indulged me with one last picture with little BFF O. Thanks for being my sweet kindergartner baby Chewkie.

Family Pumpkin Patch 2018

Look at that cute family of mine. Oh how I love them. We went to the pumpkin patch on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon along with the rest of Salem, and yet the kids didn't seem to mind. We did the corn maze (complete with loose corn found on the ground), picture poses, feeding farm animals, and picking out the perfect pumpkins. Perfect weather for the perfect pumpkins. Wonderful day.