While today was rainy, we have really been enjoying this newly discovered thing here called the sun. Tommy keeps shouting excitedly, "Sun come out!" when the clouds pass over and we went out and bought the kids some sandals for the warmer weather. Both were very excited about that.
Two weekends ago was the National Day of Service. Our church had several options to volunteer in our community but none of them seemed very conducive to us having to follow two inches behind a broken-armed two year old every second so we decided to come up with our own service idea. We went to Central Park with a garbage bag and picked up litter together. Logan thoroughly explained the difference between nature items (such as sticks and leaves) and litter. I was worried that dainty Elsy would not want to touch anyone else's garbage be she was all over that park! Tommy was excited to play on the toys there and we really had to reign him in. We saw a deer so that was fun!
Elsy and I went for a date together to the North Bend outlet mall during nap time. We got her a new dress, some sandals, and some new summer clothes. She had fun at the first two stores but was worn out after that. I gave her a piggy back ride and she was happy when I gave her a quarter to ride the merry-go-round.
Logan took this picture of Elsy. He said she looked so comfortable in her little chair. Elsy has been such a trooper the last four weeks helping to take good care of Tommy. We labeled her as his nurse and she has done such a good job of being sweet and helpful to him. She is such a whimsical girl and is always moving about in graceful ways... sticking her hand out in a flick, doing little twirls, or just jumping up and down while spinning. We still haven't figured out how to get her to stop talking. The other day at the dinner table we all were sitting impatiently wanting to say the prayer so we could start eating but Elsy just kept adding and adding to a story she was telling. Finally I suggested to Logan in a whisper that he ask her to say the prayer so she could keep talking, just through praying. That seemed to work well.
The last few Sundays since Tom broke his arm Logan has been going with him to nursery. One Sunday they decided to walk around the temple grounds for a bit. Logan said Tommy kept asking, "Dat Jesus lives?"
Later that day we went back to the temple to walk around together as a family. It was a gorgeous day! We saw a baby bunny and the kids were excited to find little bugs.
Logan and I always have to take selfies of ourselves or else we would never have pictures together.
I think the kids favorite things were the statues there. They both wore their new sandals and Logan and I frustratedly helped them take them off and on and off and on again to get out small pebbles and gravel that would get in them. They will have to get used to shaking them out on their own.
And of course, everything Elsy does Tommy has to do too. (Notice how careful we have been being with Tommy haha... Logan grabbing his leg)
This is how we have been doing bath time at our house the past month. Tommy really likes it. Logan told him the ziplock bag we put on his arm is a balloon and we give him one of those little pellets that if you get wet turns into a little sponge shaped like an animal. He hates getting his hair washed but I realized we will probably only be giving him one more bath like that before Monday and that made me happy. On Monday he gets his cast off! YaHoooo!
Elsy took this picture of me tickling Tommy. He is so cute. His hair has gotten so long. I was already procrastinating giving him a hair cut before he broke his arm and now I don't want to risk getting little hair slivers stuck down inside his cast and making him itch.
Tommy has been such a trooper these last few weeks. I can tell his arm isn't hurting him much anymore because on the rare occasion we let him take off his sling he will swing his arms back and forth and lift it up high to stretch it. This morning his sling got untied and he was using his hand so much more to play so those are all good signs to me. He is sleeping through the night again and loves it when I rub the back of his neck where his sling rests. We also discovered yesterday that he loves it if I stick my finger down the top of his cast and tickle his arm. The skin feels all leathery and dry in there. He kept asking me all day to tickle him again and when I said one more time he would cry. I feel bad that we haven't tried that before but I was always worried I would touch his stitches or something.
Tommy has been using his broken arm to his advantage at times. When I ask him to help clean up the blocks he says, "Can't, I have owie hand!" He is always informing us with this phrase when we are doing different things. We are noticing that he is a little more emotional than he was before the break. Where he used to just get mad or angry about something, he now will burst into tears. He also seems to have more anxiety. Last night he was asking me what the sprinkler on our ceiling was and I explained to him and Elsy about how it was there in case of a fire. We talked about it for a little while. And of course, Elsy started excitedly talking about all the things to do if there is a fire, her imagination always goes everywhere. And then Tommy slowly started to sniffle and got more and more scared until he was bawling about having a fire in his room. After asking many times I finally got Elsy to stop talking about fires and I had to rock Tommy to sleep. Poor guy.
Tommy's new word is "even" and he loves to use it in any sentence he can. "I even have that!" or "Even my turn!". Silly boy.
My sisters finally talked me into downloading SnapChat. I don't think I like it, but I do like getting little snaps from my sisters, as they are really the only people I follow. Elsy always asks if she can "play SnapChat" and I always tell her no. Every now and then I let her and Tommy do it and they think it is hilarious.
Oh Elsy. She is hilarious.
Since we can't play at the park these days I took the kids on a walk around Yellow Lake. They are way into Zelda: Breath of the Wild and every time they saw a sewage drain they would run over and say it was a "shrine" and ask for my phone and pretend it was their "sheika slate". I guess you probably have no idea what any of that means if you have never played the game, but if you have then you would know that it is absolutely hilarious.
The kids wanted to help Daddy do chores so they helped with the dishes!
My father-in-law told us about this cool new app called "Take A Name" that is so amazing. It is for finding names to take through the temple. It is so easy to set up and then you run it and it searches your family tree to find people who have ordinances that still need to be done. I started it before I went to bed and when I woke up it had searched 38,000 people in my tree and found 24 ordinances for me to do, later it had searched 43,000 with 37 ordinances! All I know is it would have taken me foreeeeever to search 43,000 people to find 37 ordinances. I am so amazed at modern technology and I can't wait to do the work for these ancestors. However, my great aunt Veleta who works at the Family Search Center say you do need to beware because many of the names often have duplicates being done so some extra research one each of the names that come up should still be done. But it is definitely a starting point!
I decided last minute to through a "Baby Sprinkle" for my friend BriElle last week. I only had a few days to throw it together and since it is her third baby it was a 'sprinkle' instead of a 'shower'. Haha! And because she already had most of the things she needed we did a book shower. I bought some Dr. Seuss books at Value Village and made this backdrop.
We put lots of books around on different tables and things for the decorations, nothing to over the top, just real simple... I only had a few days after all!
I had a book for each plate of food (I asked people to bring different foods). We had "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" for the meatballs, "Pinkalicious" for the cupcakes, "The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar" for a veggie tray, "The Giving Tree" for the fruit, and "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" for the chocolate chip cookies. Yum!
We got to go home for the weekend and it was so much fun! Tommy had a little bit of a cold but it wasn't to bad. My sister Leisha threw a dance party in my parents garage. Everyone who was related to her was invited haha! And if they were old enough they could bring a date. She had a tattoo station for the kids, treats, otter pops, glow sticks, black lights, a neon duct-tape dance floor, and the funnest selection of music that spanned from my grandparents down to the teens, to the littlest kids. It was an absolute blast.
Logan and Tommy hung out in my dad's Ram Charger for most of the time, they weren't to into the dancing. Elsy and I jammed quite a bit before she joined them haha!
We were able to hear my sister Leisha give an awesome talk on Sunday about being a Good Samaritan. It was perfect and just what I needed to hear.
On Monday we went to the cemetery to visit the graves of those we love. Elsy understood the lecture on not standing on the name plates because it is disrespectful but Tommy didn't. He did enjoy helping Great Grandma put the flowers in the vases.
My dad and my grandpa tried to sit in the shade of some flags. Ironically it was right where grandpa's plot is he bought for himself. Every year he says he needs to test the spot out! Haha!
We also found some shade to sit in while waiting for family to show up for pictures. Tommy's face in this picture says it all. He and Elsy just could not handle the heat. I hope they get used to it soon.
Here is the Volmer family by my uncle Kenny's grave. He was killed in a car accident when he was 19, just a few weeks before he was to leave on his mission. The grave at the bottom of the picture I believe is my Great Grandpa and Ma Anderson.
We took a girl cousin picture!
And here we are on the other side of the cemetery with my mom's side of the family at my Grandpa Merkley's grave side. That is my Grandma in the middle surrounded by all the grandkids... well lots of them anyway!
And sadly, Sharee took off before we took this picture. It was a fun weekend because we all were in town finally together! Sharee moves to Texas in less than two weeks and we wont see her for another three years. :(
After we go to the cemetery we always go to Garden Park with my dad's family to have a big fried chicken picnic and then go swimming. I stayed out with Tommy but Elsy had a blast and swam all over the place. Every year at the beginning of the sunshine we always forget to put sunscreen right under her eyes and she always gets a little burn there. She had little red rings around her eyes after swimming, poor thing!
We left at 8:30 pm because the first year we moved to Seattle, the Memorial Day traffic took us 8 hours to get home when it normally takes 3. So we have learned our lesson. We got home at midnight and a few hours later Elsy woke me up. She had a fever and has had one all week.
The poor thing. It went up to 103.4 and doesn't seem to be ready to go away yet. She is sitting on the couch right now watching Barbie Princess and the Pauper.... classssssic. I got a nasty cold as well so we spent all day Tuesday sitting on the couch watching kids movies and playing Mario Kart. I didn't even unpack until Wednesday. I am feeling much better today and Logan's allergies from Tri Cities have finally flushed from his system. But poor Elsy, the girl who gets everything 10x worse than everyone else is still feeling very miserable.
Despite being sick we have actually had a nice week. After allowing myself to be beaten down by life the last month I have regained my footing and have been working hard to not complain but take a closer look at my blessings. While we were in Tri-Cities my brother-in-law Steve made us a giant chalkboard that I am going to hang on our wall. The fun thing about it is you can change what it says whenever you want, but the first thing I want to write on it when it is mounted is "Blessed" in big words to help me remember the good things in my life. After so many trials in such a short period of time Logan and I decided to start embracing them. I mean, weren't we put on this earth to be tried and tested? To have the opportunity to choose faith and hope over fear and darkness? I am realizing more and more that the trials that come are blessings in disguise. That I am able to bond more closely with my Savior and learn to rely on him.
I used to think that God would never give me a trial I can't handle. But after having several trials in a row that I seriously can not handle, I am realizing that that isn't true at all. We are given trials that we can not handle, but God expects us to turn to Him and let Him handle it for us. I am learning more and more that anything could happen to me and I would be alright because my Savior will always be there to strengthen and sustain me.
"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." - Philippians 4:13
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