A Good Cry

Today when I got Ella up from her nap I had moment of feeling very overwhelmed. Micah is gone for training and won't be home for another 3 weeks. Then shortly after the baby is born he will go back for two other training trips, only to be home a few days before heading to Afghanistan for a year. Most days we do all right and are looking forward to all the blessings we are going to receive while he is gone. But today I had a good cry. Ella sat on my lap and looked at me and hugged me while I rocked her and cried. Then at one point she was watching me and I started to boob again...only to have a large tear roll down my face. She opened her mouth really wide, stuck out her tongue and tried to lick it off my face! Little ones always have a way of blessing our lives. She made me smile and I am grateful for all the little silly things that my kids do....most of the time.

New Shoes

Porter is not a morning person. In fact if he were a chinese buffet dish he would be sweet & sour with a big dash of stubborn. Every morning he takes FOREVER getting dressed. Shoot, anytime he has to do anything he t a k e s h i s t i m e. A few times I have started out the door to take Harmon to school with Porter bawling behind me trying to get his shoes and socks on. In fact, anytime we are going anywhere I need to tell him to put his shoes on about 30 minutes before I actually want him to leave. Part of the problem is his shoes. They are a bit narrow and difficult to get on. They also have laces. I decided I was done fighting that battle and we were going to go buy new shoes.

The one thing I did not want in his shoes? Shoes that lit up. I just think they are a dumb. Well guess what??? The one store that we went to only had his size in a pair of light up shoes. And they were $10 more than the normal pair. But I was determined to walk out of the store with shoes. It had been a long afternoon and I was not going to another store. Both boys got new Skechers and Ella was trying to convince me to buy her a pair of pretty pink shoes. That girl LOVES shoes.

The boys are in love with their new shoes. They are taking good care of them and wearing them everywhere. The first morning after we purchased the new shoes I was in bed and it was pitch dark when suddenly I noticed a strobe light flashing down the hallway. Here came Porter, miraculously dressed for school. And up before anyone else. I rolled over in bed and told Micah I would have paid $100 for those shoes. It was worth it not to fight with him anymore. So far the shoe love has continued and even funnier...




I have to go into his bedroom at night to remove his shoes!! He keeps trying to sleep in them.

Grandpa Ray and the Orange

I made a comment on Facebook yesterday about how badly I wanted a chocolate orange...I'll send out my address if you want to send me one or a box of chocolate orange sticks. :) Anyway, I haven't seen any in the stores yet and love that chocolate/orange flavor. That sparked a conversation between Brett, Andrea and myself how the love of this candy flavor might be a Schulthies thing. I told them it was because of Grandpa Ray and asked if they had heard of Grandpa eating the orange peels. If they had heard it they couldn't remember...so here it is according to the best of my memory ( which is admittedly sketchy these days) of what my mom remembers. I thought it would be fun to see how many cousins love this candy too so I decided to put it on the blog as well.

This is how the story goes according to my memory from what I remember from my mom. When Grandpa was a child during the Depression he saw that another boy had an orange. He asked the other boy if he could have the orange peels when he ate his orange. He gave them to Grandpa and it had been a really long time since he had had anything like that so he ate the peels. My mom thinks he must have really been craving some vitamins! She also thinks that is about the same time that Grandpa's family butchered a hog for Christmas and he and his brother got to use the pig stomach for a ball. They also got a red wagon and it was a fun Christmas.

My mom said that no matter what the circumstance that every Christmas Grandpa always would buy a box or bag of oranges for Christmas and that was his contribution to the day. Every year his mother, Grandma Schulthies to my mom, would send a box for Christmas. It always held the same things. A quilt made from Grandma Evelyn's scrap pile. When Grandma Schulthies would visit in the summer she would always take the scraps back to make the quilt. My mom said that she would also bring a phone book from the salt lake area so that they could use it for toilet paper. But back to the box...it held a quilt, candied orange slices for the kids, a box of Sweet's chocolate covered orange jelly sticks for Grandpa Ray, some of that old fashioned holiday candy (my mom has a name for it but I can't remember what it is) a small toy for each kid, nuts, and candy from their Mercer cousins. I might be missing something, but I think that is it. My mom says that Grandpa just LOVED those orange sticks.

It all makes sense now, doesn't it! Our parents probably all grew up watching Grandpa eat his box of sticks and wanting some! So now our parents all do the same thing. Isn't it interesting to be connected together by a love of a candy that our Grandfather loved? I know my mom has to buy several boxes of those candies because they never last long! My mom still makes sure to buy a box of oranges for Christmas, nuts and candy. All because they are what she had as a child. Micah always think I am nuts because I like to buy nuts and candy for Christmas too.

My mom also said that she remembers every time that they visited Uncle Rendell (Grandpa's brother) he would always have those candied orange slices too. She also says that Grandma Schulthies was always so good to Grandpa because Grandpa had been so good to his parents. I think we were born into a family that has a strong heritage. How fortunate we all are!

I know that love of family was important to our Grandparents...all three grandparents. Not too many people have the opportunity to have such a fantastic family. My mom has always told me how important that was. Recently many of my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins have been especially loving to my parents and I don't have the words for my gratitude, but I am grateful! I feel especially blessed to have such a wonderful extended family!

Conversations with the Boys

I have been meaning to post these funny comments from the boys.

One day during breakfast Porter was sitting quietly when out of nowhere he said, "Actually Plankton is a pickle."

Okay.

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Harmon whispering to Porter when they were looking for a treat:

I know where she hides them.

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My OB is a very good doctor. He is also a large man. Two weeks ago Micah came with me for the first time. As the Dr and his nurse entered the room Porter said to Micah:
"See Dad...he's fatter than you!"

And yesterday while we were waiting again, Harmon was with us (everyone has sick kids around here and I would rather take kids with me to the Dr than get sick) for the first time. Again, Porter was filling Harmon in on the Dr.

"Harmon, this Dr is just really fat. He has really big legs and a really big belly."

Fortunately the Dr had not come into the room yet and we had a little visit about not commenting on people's size.

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A little explanation to my favorite boy conversation so far. Micah is being deployed to Afghanistan for a year next spring. Prior to the actual deployment he has a lot of pre-deployment training and will gone A LOT! Fortunately he will be home for the birth of the baby. There was some question of that for awhile. Anyway we are trying to prepare for this baby, Micah being gone and packing up our house for yet another move. I will be moving close to my parents while he is gone. We have been talking about where we should go while Micah is away. This is how our conversation at the dinner table went:

Me: Where should we live while Daddy is in Afghanistan?
Porter: We should just go live where ever he is going to be.
Me: I explained that it wouldn't be safe for families to go there because they had real bad guys that would be there.
Harmon: Real bad guys like Pirates?

A little laugh from me and then "Yes, kind of like Pirates."

Harmon digested this for about 2 seconds, looked at Micah and then said,

"Dad...you better take your machete."

A Girl?!?

Ella is a very busy girl. I am her mother, so I am slightly biased, but I also think she is a very determined, very bright little girl...who can throw a mean temper tantrum. But I digress. I had to share these three little busy girl tidbits. And wonder....where does this come from?

First...we were all sitting in the computer/piano room when in strolls Ella with a nearly full and open package of chocolate chips that she had conveniently snuck from the pantry. I suspect one of her brothers left it within reach. Oh the tantrum that ensued when we removed said bag. Isn't it a bit early to be so attached to chocolate?

Second...we cut the boys hair tonight which meant that I had tiny bits of hair all over me. ITCHY!! Ella was filthy from dinner, so I took her to my bathroom while Micah supervised the boys' bath. This is actually a two part befuddlement. I put her in the bathtub with me and put in some greenish blue bath mineral stuff. The water was beautiful and here is this sweet little girl sitting next to me when suddenly she starts passing gas. A LOT of gas. My first thought? This is like bathing with Shrek. I quickly gave my legs a quick pass with a not so sharp razor. Better to do it while I could actually reach my legs than to risk falling over to get around this pregnant belly. I put the razor up high, got out of the tub, turned around and little Missy was attempting to shave her legs. *sigh* Again...a bit early, right?

Third, lastly and most shocking to me...yesterday I was sewing on her Halloween costume. She sat on my lap messing with every conceivable nob and pin, driving me nuts in the process. I sent her to get some toys from the boys room. She was gone about 2 minutes and I thought to myself...perhaps it was a prompting...what is she doing? I tipped my head back to look down the hallway. There she was, with my flat iron half plugged into the socket. One hand had a fist full of hair the other was angling the flat iron up to her forehead. Fortunately it doesn't turn on automatically. How do they figure these things out?

I think this girl just might be a girl and I have to admit I am a little frightened! :0)