He's Just a Kid Who's Four

Isaac turned 4 yesterday and I can hardly believe how quickly time has flown by.  We had a lovely afternoon celebrating him after church yesterday and he cracked me up all day long with his pride and excitement at finally being 4.  In his mind, this is a HUGE milestone.  As he happily told me after waking up yesterday, he can finally get his own device!  Hahaha.  I don't know when or how that seed was planted, but apparently he's expecting an iPod Touch any day now.

{Please note -- there is NOT an iPod Touch in any of these gifts.  Hahaha.}

I made his cake Saturday night after he went to bed, and cake was the first thing on his mind when he woke up on Sunday.  Well, I guess it was the second first thing, right after the iPod Touch.  ;)  His request for this year's theme was a Roblox cake to which I happily acquiesced seeing as to how it was easy peasy to create.  All I did was replicate the app icon -- a white background with a red box tilted in the middle, and BOOM -- done.  He would have eaten his cake for breakfast if I didn't convince him we should wait to do cake and presents after church.  As a concession, we let him open a couple of presents right then and there, and that seemed to do the trick!

See what I mean?  It couldn't get much easier than that.

All-in-all, he had a banner day!  He loved everything the kids picked out for him -- a Roblox action figure, some Bot Bots Transformers (?), a pack of new Hot Wheels cars, new Spiderman pajamas, and a couple of Lego sets -- and he really loved that cake.  I think he single-handedly ate more than anyone else in the house!  {It was Devil's Food Cake with cream cheese frosting, so I can't really blame him.}  He really was so grateful and happy and excited all day long and I was the happy recipient of a whole bunch of "I love you, mom!"s peppered throughout the day.

He did the candle placement all by himself.

We really need to work on {real} smiling for the camera.

{That cute little face though.}

 {The Ninjago LEGO set (for ages 7+) was Alex's contribution to Isaac's birthday presents.  I'll let you guess who put it all together and now plays with it.  Hint -- it's not Isaac.  Hahahaha.}

 The Hot Wheels loopdie loop race track from me and Scott was the piece de resistance.

I'm pretty sure EVERYONE has enjoyed racing with it -- myself included!  Hahaha.  :)

The day was a delight!  I'm so glad we have this crazy, hilarious, adorably mischievous, sweet little boy as a part of our family.

He wore his birthday crown from preschool today all day long.  (That and his new Spiderman jammies.)

Gird Up!

So, I just realized this week that I never blogged about our new theme for the school year.  After giving it a lot of thought and prayer, Scott and I decided on the idea of girding up our loins.  Which we also decided sounded a little awkward for a family cheer at the end of every family prayer.  Hahahaha.  So we shortened it to the simple (yet still effective) Gird Up!

All laughs aside, though, the more I studied this concept of girding up, the more I loved the idea!  (Especially when pairing it with the extension of putting on the whole armor of God.)  And since I also love the dictionary, it was one of the first places I went to really try and understand what it means to gird up one's loins:

gird (up) (one's) loinsTo prepare oneself to face or contend with something. 

gird up one's loins
Fig. to get ready, especially for hard work; to prepare oneself (for something).

gird your loins or gird up your loins JOURNALISM, LITERARY
If someone girds their loins or girds up their loins, they prepare themselves mentally to deal with a difficult situation. 

gird (up) your loins:  prepare and strengthen yourself for what is to come. 

gird (up) your loins (literary or humorous) -- prepare yourself for action, hard work, etc. In the Bible, to gird your loins meant to pick up your robe and tie it about your waist so that you could run or move much more quickly. 

gird (up) (one's) loins
To summon up one's inner resources in preparation for action.

I don't know about you, but I had never really thought of this phrase in those specific ways!  I think in my mind I just imagined girding up to be more of a metaphor for going into battle.  But I really like the idea that to gird up one's loins can also refer to any kind of preparation we might undertake to steel ourselves for ANY form of difficult things to come.  {And that's the last time I'm going to use the word "loins" in this post.  Hahahahaha.  If it's quoted from a scripture, though, it doesn't count.  Haha.}

Our first Scripture Time verse for the new year and new theme was from Doctrine & Covenants 27:15 and we were all struck by how often some of these phrases were quoted during General Conference last month:

Wherefore, lift up your hearts and rejoice, and gird up your loins, and take upon you my whole armor, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all, that ye may be able to stand.

The message is clear -- we need to gird up; prepare ourselves for whatever may be thrown our way in these last days!  A quote from Sister Joy D. Jones (the General Primary President) has stuck with me over the last few years and I think it really helps to get at the HOW of girding up and putting on the whole armor of God.  From her Conference address in April of 2017, she taught that, "Our children don spiritual armor as they establish patterns of personal daily discipleship."

THAT is what we are going to be working on this year to help us in our efforts to Gird Up -- our patterns of personal (as well as family) DAILY discipleship.  It's easy to write them off as the standard "Sunday school answers," but reading the scriptures -- especially the Book of Mormon, praying, and attending our church meetings are the very things that will protect us from the fiery darts of the adversary.  I've come to realize over the last few months that it's never too late and you're never too old to begin working on these habits (or recommitting to them, as the case may be).  And that's a beautiful thing.  :)

Grace is 15

She's had a birthday, shout hurray!  Grace's birthday fell -- yet again -- the day after Halloween this year.  Hahaha.  I don't know why it always catches me off guard (even though I know it's coming), but it does.

This year her birthday was on a Friday, which is the perfect day to have a birthday day, in my opinion.  Since we like to drag things out around these parts, Grace requested that we have her birthday dinner (at Panera, as per usual) on Friday and her cake and presents on Saturday.  As an added bonus, Sophie chalked the sidewalk for her when she got home from school Friday afternoon and I had an early gift waiting for her on the counter.

I have to say -- Friday was one of the most delightful evenings we've had in a while!  With Ethan always either at work or doing homework, it seems as though we don't have as many of these full family evenings together as I would like.  Once Scott was home from work, we skedaddled on over to Panera (where everyone was miraculously well-behaved) and then skedaddled on home for a low-key movie night with the fam.

Saturday was slightly more aggravating as we were trying to juggle multiple things while also prepping for Grace's "party," but we managed to pull it together and squeeze it in between 3 and 6 PM while Ethan was home in between shifts at work.  Grace seemed pleased with her cake (even if I wasn't so pleased that the execution didn't match up to my vision) and she was good-naturedly humored by everyone's gifts that were grabbed very last minute at Target.  Haha.

 {Grace is obsessed with Grey's Anatomy, so obviously that had to be the theme for the cake.  And since it's just an obvious play on words, I had to change it to "Grace Anatomy" for the writing.  There's also a silhouette of the Seattle skyline in the background, but I don't know how well that shows up, and the "y" at the end of Anatomy is supposed to be a stethoscope.  I tried people.  I tried.}

And just like that, she's 15!  To close, I'll list 15 things I love about Grace (even though I know she'll hate it because Words of Affirmation are not her thing):

1. She has a fantastic sense of humor
2. She has mad skills at tricking people into doing things for her
3. She makes me laugh
4. Talking with her is always interesting
5. She's very creative
6. She's great with kids
7. She keeps me on my toes
8. She doesn't care what anyone thinks about her
9. She marches to the beat of her own drum
10. She's relentless in pursuing the things that matter to her
11. SHE may not like Words of Affirmation, but she knows that I do and she humors me with them on special occasions
12. What you see is what you get with her
13. She's not sneaky
14. She has a knack for decorating
15. She's a lot of fun

Halloween 2019

Spooky Season is wrapped up for the year!  Last night's trick-or-treating was the culmination of a month-long anticipatory wait.  Really, the last TWO days have been the jackpot of candy accumulation for the kids, thanks to a ward trunk-or-treat on Wednesday night and a Halloween party at Scott's office yesterday afternoon before the "real" trick-or-treating began.  And even though this Halloween was complicated by the fact that Sophie had a game to cheer at early in the evening {don't even get me STARTED on how ridiculous I thought it was to have a junior high football game on Halloween}, we still managed to pull things together in a timely manner.

 Sophie threw together an Alvin (from the chipmunks) costume right before the church party.

Jane was so excited to have a "themed" costume with her friend, Annie.

And Isaac was really rocking this ninja turtle costume that was decidedly a size too small for him.  Hahahaha.

 

Timeline of a Halloween Evening:

3:30-4:00  -- Jane, Alex, and Isaac thoroughly enjoyed the extravaganza at Scott's work.  Seriously, it was impressively over the top.  Scott's team was dressed up as Dr. Seuss characters, but there was almost anything and everything you could imagine for the other booths.  We're talking Candyland, minions, an m&m family, Napoleon Dynamite -- it was pretty epic!  And the younger three loved it.  :)

The full team!

The family of m&ms had to have Jane join them for a picture.  :)

4:45 -- Ethan left for work.  Sonic was having their 50 cent corn dog special all day long and it was all hands on deck to manage the rush.  {He was scheduled to work a 5-11 PM shift, but thankfully they let him (and the other high schooler) go home a little after 10.}

4:50-5:35 -- This time slot was devoted to me shuttling Sophie over to the high school for the game and then driving back home to take the younger 3 trick-or-treating with friends.  There was so much traffic it took me twice as long to get her there and twice as long to get back.  Doh!

They performed a Halloween themed half time dance.

6:00-7:00 -- Fun with friends!!!  My younger half were ecstatic to have some friends come over to trick-or-treat with us.  (Everything is more fun with friends.)  Grace and Gianna also get a special shout out during this hour for being the official candy-hander-outers back home.  Hahaha.  I think Grace LOVED handing out the candy and seeing all the cute little kids in their costumes and they did a great job holding down the fort while Scott set off to pick up Sophie from her game.

 Alex was the all green Ninjago character on the bottom row, second from the left.

7:00-8:30 -- Sophie went with a couple of her friends to another neighborhood to beg for candy while Grace and Gianna darted off to canvas ours.  I believe they were all successful.  :)  (Meanwhile Scott and I stayed at home handing out candy on the porch.)

9:00 -- Everyone (except Ethan) was finally home and off to bed!  Not too shabby for Halloween night, if I do say so myself.  

And there you have it!  Out with the Spooky and in with the Christmas!  Hahahaha.  J/K, j/k.  I know Thanksgiving comes in between the two.  But that hasn't stopped me from listening to Christmas music all day long.  ;)