Fathers and Sons

Last weekend it was our ward's father's and son's campout. Phil decided to go a week before. I appreciated him taking time out to spend with James. He has been studying nonstop for his first set of boards next month. It has been a worse schedule than when he was actually in class! But a week before the campout Phil informed me that he was going to go which surprised me. It would take out a whole day of studying. He then told me that he didn't want to ever be "too busy" to do things like this. Quite impressive to me.

They had a good time and James loved to be outside to play in the dirt, with sticks, etc. Phil also took 2 boys from our ward so they kept James entertained on the drive to and from the campout. Phil decided to sleep in the car with James while the 2 boys slept in our tent. They didn't get to bed until at least 10pm and then James was up at 5am. So needless to say, James was one tired boy when he got home...his dad was also! I guess Phil decided to just sleep in the same sleeping bag half way through the night so it wasn't the most restful sleep!

I was a little lonely on Friday night but Saturday was able to do some major cleaning. It is amazing what you can get done when you don't have a toddler at your side or needing your attention!

That night we went to a East Valley Mormon Choir Orchestra (EVMCO) concert to see our family participate (Steve, Louise, Shay, and Derek). The concert featured Collin Raye

and was absolutely amazing. It had patriotic songs (some of my favorite) and the evening was a wonderful. My awesome sister put up with grumpy and tired James as well as Maren while we were gone and luckily James crashed for her at an early bedtime. It was a great weekend!

Updating the undocumented

Here are a few happenings that I never got around to documenting.

One of our friends came over for Valentine's day and we decided to do some fingerpainting for the dads. James and his friend Rachel had the time of their lives. It was funny to watch James figure out what he was supposed to do. As you can see, most of the paint just ended up on him. The picture on top was the running around game post painting.

Just getting into things. I love to watch him explore and figure things out...even if that means picking up a mess afterwards (at least most of the time).

James' first introduction to the wii. He loved watching. After watching baseball he started to act like he was batting and throwing. In this particular picture, it shows how much his dad enjoyed it as well. Talk about focus!

In January, we started having problems with our Malibu...well, more problems. The mechanic couldn't figure out what was going on except by pulling the engine apart. We finally decided we had had it with car problems and started looking for another. What to look for became the question. We wanted to get a car that would last us at least through residency which could be as long as 8 years down the road. And at that point, we didn't know where our family would be so we decided to upgrade in size. It took a lot humility but we decided on a Toyota Sienna minivan. Phil and I are neither minivan people but we can now say that we LOVE it. It is a 2006 and we got it from a family in Gilbert who took great care of it. It is so nice to finally have a reliable car.

James loves to "work". Whatever you are doing, he wants to do too (especially with his dad). In fact, this is how Phil watches James. He just goes outside to work on a project and James wants to be in on the action. Many times, James will watch what you are doing (for example, digging) and then come and want your shovel so he can do it. Phil will generally give him his tool and then find something else he can use or get another tool to work on something else. What a great helper! He is helping his dad dig out a big concrete mass out of the ground.

There have are some mornings when Phil will get up work on things and I will continue to try to catch some sleep. He will sometimes take Maren out of the room so I can get some really restful sleep. One morning when I came out, this was what I found.

I tried to take a quick shower and when I came out, this is what I found. We purposely don't have the toilet paper on our roller but keep it on the counter top so James doesn't play with it. Unfortunately, it wasn't far enough up. I think he was pretty proud of himself. I tried to get him to pose for the picture so I could get the decorations plus him. This was the best I could do.

Cousin John was born on April 1st, 17 days after Maren. It is fun to have them so close. John is 4 days old in the above picture and the bottom picture is on Mother's day when he was blessed.

Easter

Although Easter wasn't too eventful, we still had fun watching James experience it. We talked with James the morning about the true meaning of Easter and then later in the day we had dinner with my family and an egg hunt for James. He caught on quickly that you get the eggs and put them in your basket to be opened later instead of opening each one as you find it...although he took a few pit stops to get some candy. I'm sure we had more fun watching him than he did finding them...well, he may beg to differ. As soon as he collected all of them, he sat down and one by one, opened them up to gobble up the goods inside.

And he's off!

There is one this way!

Look dad!

"I needed to make sure there really were some goods in this one!"

The final loot

Not the most flattering picture but, I wanted at least one with both kids and they had had it. At least I just took one with both, right?