Happy Birthday

Tobin turned 12 yesterday! It is amazing to me to think of him as a young man. In the last few weeks he has showed so much of what an amazing young man he is turning out to be. He has made so many good choices lately and I am left overwhelmed with emotion becuase he is so much more than I could have hoped for. We are told so often what a great person he is and I love to be reminded of that. Lately when he does something not quite right, I repeat like a mantra in my head, "he is so great and has made so many good choices when it really matters; this is small and not worth getting angry about." It seems to help. I hope T knows what a great young man he is.

Also, his birthday was marked by a pretty big occasion. Tobin was ordained to the office of deacon in the Aaronic priesthood in our church. It is not often it happens exactly on your 12th birthday, but it did and was so special to us. Andy and I were both amazed when he asked for Andy to give him a blessing. It just showed us how much Tobin was taking this seriously and how much he was thinking about it. He is excited to help pass the sacrament next week.

It is appropriate to say that both Tobin and Brett took similar steps this weekend. Both passed a huge rite of passage in their religion, in moving from boy to man. Even though Brett's bar mitzvah was celebrated with a big party afterwards, what Tobin did today was no less. It just shows the difference between cultures. The Jewish culture and the Mormon culture simply celebrate the passages in different ways. What made it so special to me was being able to celebrate with both of them in the way that fits them both. Both are amazing young men and I hope they continue in the path they have shown.

We had a big family dinner and cake to celebrate with Tobin last night! Tobin thoroughly enjoyed himself being with family. His cousin Ali, ever the clown, came up with some clever gifts. She gave Tobin toilet paper, a glow bracelet and water balloons. Tobin laughed so hard and is already thinking of the things he can give to her for her birthday! He also loved holding the baby of the family, baby Jake, who is 4 months old!

If you look closely at the picture of Tobin with the cake you will see that he is really laughing. Tobin lit his birthday candles and as I was telling everyone, "ready, 1--2--3" Tobin blew out the candles. What I really was saying was is everyone ready to sing Happy Birthday? So, we sang on and the candles stayed blown out! It was funny to see the smoke wafting before the end of happy birthday!

Brett's bar mitzvah

Our nephew Brett had his bar mitzvah this past Saturday. It was quite a party and experience. It was a whole day affair as the bar mitzvah was a morning ceremony and the party was at night. I can only tell you that the band they had was so awesome that they had to book them two years ago! They were worth it. They certainly knew how to get the crowd going. They had dancers to help teach dances, they allowed people to help sing with them (something I did not take advantage of), and knew how to integrate old with young. Andy practiced the "Soldja Boy" dance just in case they played it; they did! The band gave out sunglasses and hats for songs like "soul man" and "I will survive."
The food was also so wonderful. Dinner was sea bass and filet minon; how can you go wrong? It was so good. The other great thing was that we were able to spend time with family from out of town. It was so much fun talking with them and catching up with them. I have a lot of pictures but will only share a few. I think Brenna looks so beautiful and my boys made my heart melt. In fact, at the end of the night, I saw Tobin putting his cell number into a girl's phone. When we asked him about it later on that night, on the way home, he couldn't remember the girl's name!! It was great and we felt great to be able to celebrate with Brett.

Berry picking

I took Noah and Brenna with a friend berry picking last Friday. We had a great time, except that it was hot again for the first time in a week. We took a ride out to the berries and were dropped off. I have never been berry picking before and was really excited to try it. It was quite fun plucking the blueberries off of their branches. Noah was quite delicate and careful with his method of picking. He begain by pulling them off individually and quickly realized that wasn't quite right. So, he began gently pulling on a bunch of berries so that they softly fell into the half full bucket. Brenna, ever my daughter, began by pulling and sliding her hand down through the bunch of blueberries. She didn't quite care if they fell into her bucket or not and wasn't careful about pulling them off. She had fun eating and picking, eating and picking. It was a pattern I saw with strawberries as well. The strawberry fields were a little ripe and fermented and I wasn't as happy with them as I had about the blueberries. Luckily the kids were convinced of their sweetness and persisted. They found a great bunch on the backside of the strawberry patch. It was really fun for them to have friends as well. I think everyone should go berry picking at least once!! It's nice to feel connected to the earth this way.

Brenna Writes a Song...Or is it taken???

I heard Brenna singing this song the other day. She was really cute and I tried to listen to the words. I noticed that she wrote them down in a journal and thought I should share them with you. I have asked her and she told me that she wrote these words herself! But.....this is from a girl who introduced herself as "Jessica" at a party once, told friends of ours that we were getting two dogs from PetSmart, and who took my glasses to camp to tell others she wears glasses. I think she's cute, but mixes up reality and make believe. Here is her song:

I’m Just Where I’m Supposed to Be


I’ve never been the kind of girl
Who never believes
you are me and I am you
You’ve got to understand
I’m not who you think I am

You see I’m sunshine
The kind of girl
I am like you
I am sunshine you know that so don’t ask me that
This is me, this is who I am

Pretty clever, don't you think? :)

Tobin at swim meet

My friend took this picture of T swimming at the meet last Saturday. I thought it was great!!

Just a Good Day

I know, when it rains it pours. And since this is the first post you see, you might not realize it is like my fourth of the day, but I had to say this. I love, love, love my boys. I was getting ready for company and needed to get my house clean, but I had extended errands and was stressing about how I was going to get it all done. I walked in the door last night around 8:00 ready to clean and couldn't believe how clean the main level was. It had been cleaned!!! I thought it was Andy, but he told me it was Tobin and Noah! I was in tears-- my boys realized my stress and found a way to not only help me, but make me feel pure joy in my veins!! I am amazed at what great kids I have. They are truly turning out to be kids that I can be proud of and truly happy to have around. And the cherry on top was that as I walked upstairs, I saw a load of towels folded. The imperfection of the folded towels is what made me cry like a baby again. To see the imperfect lines, to realize that someone not used to folding towels had folded them, grabbed at my heartstrings and pulled. I wish I had taken a picture before putting them away to remind me of what is always right in front of me: what a wonderful show of family unity my kids have shown me. I love, love, love my boys. Tobin will be 12 on Sunday and it makes me want to go out and buy him the world. But, I hope he feels like I do, that he already has the world. I wish the same for Noah.

Zoo trip

We had a great time at the zoo today. All I can say is thank goodness the friends I went with have been teachers before! There were three of us (adults) and four of them (kids). One of my friends, Andrea, thougth to bring a "zoo bingo" game to play at the zoo. Who would have thought that this would have made it more fun. And my other friend, Kyra, brought the sunscreen; she was prepared. It was such a beautiful day with breeze and shade. The extra child was Annie Kate, a friend of ours, we were watching for the day. Unfortunately, the zoo was a last minute change of plans; we had originally planned to go the Native American Indian museum downtown. I am not sure why we quite changed our mind, but we did. I promise, Annie Kate, that I will take you to the museum this summer. She was a good sport about it and I hope she had fun. I couldn't always tell. The favorite animals were the orangutangs and the pandas. Andrea, is a friend of the zoo and had a lot of details about the pandas. She even went to Tai Shan's 2nd party at the zoo. Kyra, educated the kids on the birds and the bees of panda mating! It was a picture and interactive display on the wall that started it! The orangutangs were very funny and drew the most laughs. I hate that I am retelling the story, but the collective laugh of children in the monkey house was soo great. The orangutang pooped while he was hanging from a tree. Can you imagine a hosue full of children witnessing this display? Can you hear their laughter? And it didn't happen once; it happened a couple of times. The laughter was so fun and nice to hear. Why couldn't he have done it on the ground? We don't know either. It was a great day and I was glad I did it. And I actually drove to DC without getting lost (of course, Andrea was right there beside me telling me where to go). Another animal that took our attention was a peacock mantis shrimp. The volunteer was trying to feed it and we wanted to see her feed it. Apparently it is quite aggressive and they keep it in its own cage so it would eat the other sea animals. It was very colorful and didn't seem at all aggressive. It was fun to be doing something on our summer vacation!!