Stand (or dance) By Me

My sister-in-law Alice posted this video on her bog.

Stand By Me

I love this song and so I was instantly in a good mood and started dancing. Cade was sitting in his walking chair and he loves it when I dance to or with him. He instantly laughs at me. I'm thinking he's laughing because I look like such a dork when I dance, but who cares. His laughter is music to my ears.

Thank you Ali for getting my day off to a good start.

Bath Time

I know I just posted about Cade, but here are some more pictures. He LOVES his bath time. Actually, I'm not sure who loves it more, Cade or Lily. We give him baths in our kitchen sink and Lily loves to help. Here are a few pictures from our bath time:

Cade

Here are some recent pictures that I've taken of Cade. He is growing so much. He now weights 20 pounds and is almost 7 months old. He is currently wearing clothes for 9 months but is almost all grown out of them. We absolutely LOVE his little chubby cheeks, thighs, legs, ankles, arms, wrists and hands (did I leave anything out??) He is such a joy to us and we are so very thankful he is in our family.

True Friend

What defines a true friend? I think the picture below should be put in the dictionary under "friend".

I am so grateful that Mary is the kind of friend that entertains while a friend is doing their "business"!!

I love you Mary!

On a lighter note

The last two post have been a little serious so I figured it was time to laugh again. Leave it to my little big brother to make this happen. I was reading his blog the other night, when I was suppose to be preparing seminary, and read this post. I laughed so hard that I almost wet my pants. I love Jordan and I am so glad he has such a great sense of humor.

Mr. Mom Blog

Thank you Jordan!!

The Saga Continues

I spoke with Lily's teacher and she was disturb as we were at this story that has been told of the Candy Man. She pulled the two girls aside that told Lily this story and spoke to them about why they shouldn't do this. They told Lily that the story wasn't true and that one of their sisters, who is in the 3rd grade, saw it on a movie. What in the world are these kids watching?? Where are their parents? We have since had lots of discussions about what is real and what is pretend. I can tell that Lily is trying to tell the difference between the two but doesn't quite have it yet. We have talked about this from every angle possible. I guess this will just take some time to overcome.

So, it is safe to say we have had a VERY LONG week. Lily continues to be afraid at night. We have made a bed on our floor so that when she get scared she can come into our room. This hasn't been good enough for her though. She continues to not sleep very much. One day she will get about 4 hours and the next she will do good but it's because she is completely exhausted. Even then she will wake up a few times a night. A few days ago we decided that it would help if she could sleep with her furry friends. It has helped some but still not all the way. I couldn't help but take a picture because I thought it was so cute.

The Candy Man

Lily came home from school yesterday to inform me that she heard a scary story at lunch about the Candy Man. It was scary enough to make her cry. The though of my little girl crying at school broke my heart. Then the thought of someone else making her cry made me mad!! She said it was such a scary story that she didn't even want to talk to me about it. I tried off and on all day to get her to tell me but she wouldn't.

Well, it's time for bed and she will not go to sleep. She refuses to close her eyes. I finally get her to tell me what the story is about. One of the girls in her class told her that the candy man is going to come and take Lily during the night while she is asleep and cut her throat, with his sword. Right away I started to get soooo mad. What 5 year old is telling this? Where are they hearing this? This has traumatized Lily enough that we had the worst night of sleeping.

I told her she could sleep in our bed if she would just close her eyes and go to sleep. She jumped at this idea. We talked and talked and talked about the situation. We even called Grammy to get some reassurance. Finally at 9:45, after 2.5 hours, she was asleep. But, at 12:30 she woke up. It wasn't until 2:30 am that she finally went back to sleep. Then, she woke up again at 5:30 am and did NOT go back to sleep. In the meantime, Cade woke up a million times too. He must have know his sister wasn't doing so well.

We are all tired and grumpy. The more time that goes by, the more made I am getting at this little girl who told Lily about the Candy Man. Safe to say, I will talk to Lily's kindergarten teacher and get her to help.

My #1 Guy

I'm taking this time to say thank you to Tyler for all that he does. He has so many people pulling him in a million different directions, and he is able to keep on smiling. Tyler has some really long weeks with working 70+ hours and then has other responsibilities with church and family. He was finally able to take some much needed time off work the week of New Year's.

Well, he had a nice welcoming back from a few days off. Here's Tyler schedule since Friday:
Friday
10:00 am - ride subway 1.5 hrs to Seoul for Youth Conference
10:00pm - start on subway to return home to only ride for 20 min because the trains are done running for the night to our stop. He turns around and goes back to the chapel in Seoul to get a ride with Shawn Knudsen who is waiting for him.

Saturday
1:15 am - finally return from Youth Conference
3:50 am - wake up to go to work (after 2.5 hours of sleep)
4:20 am - leave for work
5:00 pm - return home from work
6:00 pm - eat out dinner with family
6:45 pm - run to commissary before it closes at 7:00
7:30 pm - go back to work to prepare for Monday's flight with a 3 star General
10:30 pm - return home from work - AGAIN
11:30 pm - go to bed after watching a little bit of the Sugar Bowl

Sunday
7:00 am - wake up and get ready for church (get to sleep in because no meetings on 1st Sunday)
8:30 am- go to church
3:30 pm - get home from church
11:00 pm - go to bed after dinner, cleaning & heart to heart talk with wife

Monday
5:00 am - wake up and get ready for work
5:45 am - leave for work
8:00 pm - return from work after taking care of the General for the day and then gets on the phone to take care of church stuff
10:00 pm - finally done taking care of church stuff and decides to eat dinner.
11:30 pm - goes to bed

Tuesday
3:30 am - feed Cade so I can get some sleep
6:00 am - wakes up to get ready for work
6:45 am - leaves for work

And the fun continues....... I'm absolutely amazed at everything that Tyler is able to do. I was feeling sorry for myself at never having a husband home and then I stopped to think about what all he has to do. I'm going to try and do better and making life a little bit easier for Tyler at home.

Thank you Tyler for all that you do for our family and for many others. I love you!!

Caring of Cade

Here is a conversation I had with Lily tonight, which she started:

Lily: "Mom, when you die I will take care of Cade."
Mom: "Thank you so much. I want to make sure he is taken care of when I'm gone."
Lily: "Mom, I'll do it exactly like you do."
Mom: "That's great, but you do it as you see best for Cade."
Lily: "No Mom, I'll do it like you. Just like you. I'll probably be about 8 or 16 when you are old and die. It will make me sad but I'll be ok."
Mom: "I hope to live longer than that."
Lily: "Cade is my best friend."

I'm so happy to know that Lily thinks I'll be old in another 2-10 years and that Cade will still be a baby and she will take care of him. There was no mention of Dad taking care of him. I hope that these two will still be such good friends in the future.

If anyone was born to be a mom it is Lily. She does so much to help me with Cade. I promise I'm not lazy and make her do these things. She loves to be a big sister and take care of her brother.

The Big Bad Tooth Fairy

There is no doubt that Lily is always surprising us and keeping us on our toes. This specific day was more than we could have ever imagined. Lily has been waiting for almost a year for a tooth to fall out. Pretty often she will come to me and show me a tooth and say that it is moving. As I go to inspect the tooth I find that it is as still as can be. It's not moving anywhere! She is disappointed but says that it is wiggly "just a tiny tiny bit"!!

You can imagine how excited we were when the day finally came that she really did have a wiggly tooth. I wanted to have a party to celebrate. Lily started taking a little Ziploc bag to school every day just in case it fell out while she was at school. Well, we didn't realize just how long it takes for wiggly teeth to actually fall out. Almost 2 MONTHS later the day arrived!

This is Sunday night dinner when Lily and Tyler worked tirelessly to move the tooth back and forth and side to side to make it more loose.



The success came the next day at school. At 9:36 am, while drinking some water, Lily's tooth finally came out!!

As soon as Lily got home from school, we called Tyler at work and told him the good news. What a huge day for Lily!! We've been talking about the tooth fairy and the money that she brings for almost a year and Lily just couldn't believe that she was finally going to get her money. She was a little sad about having to have to give her tooth away, but in the end the money is a better prize.

Well, after we got off the phone with Tyler, the million questions about the Tooth Fairy started!

Is it a boy or girl?
Is she short or tall?
Can she talk?
Can she walk or does she fly?
Is she strong? She has to lift up my pillow and open the Ziploc bag!
How does she know that I lost my tooth?
Is she nice or mean?

And this went on for about 4 hours. She was absolutely terrified of the Tooth Fairy. It came time to go to bed and she didn't want to put the tooth under her pillow. She didn't want to go to sleep. She wanted to call Grammy because I "didn't have kids before" and didn't know what I was talking about. Well, it was 5:00 am for Grammy so I told her we couldn't call. So, she then wanted to call our friend Lisa. Lisa talked to her on the phone for a while and then came over and brought her a special "tooth pillow". Lisa spent the next 20 minutes trying to reassure Lily that everything was ok and the Tooth Fairy really is nice. Lisa suggested that Lily put the pillow with the tooth on it beside her bed on the floor. Lily liked this idea and ran with it.

Finally, Lily was able to put her tooth on the special pillow and get into bed. It doesn't end here though!


After more thinking, she decided that she didn't want the Tooth Fairy to even come in her room. So, she put the pillow outside in the hallway!! She said she put it far enough away from the door so that the Fairy wouldn't have to peek in on her!!




Sammy must have somehow picked up on Lily's concerns because this is where Sammy slept for most of the night. What a great friend!!


The next morning when Lily found her money she was very happy. She did inform me that she's not ready to put her next tooth under her pillow. She wants to put it in the hallway again to practice not being scared of the Tooth Fairy.

Who knew this Tooth Fairy lady was so much drama and work!!!

2009 Here I Come

I had the goal over Christmas break to blog everyday. I've missed blogging and I have some really funny stories. Well, break is over in two days and I haven't blogged once. This must mean I've had a fun break, right?

I'm now making one of my goals for 2009 to blog at least 2 times a week. I'm off to a good start with blogging today. Yeah!!

Here is our latest family picture:


Cade did pretty well considering it was cold and his first photo shoot. I still can't believe we have 2 children. I love to try and use the phrase "the kids" as often as I can. We have been so blessed while stationed in Korea. We are sad at the thought of leaving Korea in a year, but at the same time I can't wait to eat some Chi-fil-a and Cracker Barrel!!